LLH Alternate Future
by psychotol
Summary: A Fanfiction Fanfiction of Legion Of Lawndale Heroes where Tiffany has to balance her Navy obligations against her Legion obligations.
1. Qualification

Constraints: Some point after Tiffany attends USAES.

Synopsis: LLH Alternate Universe: Having attended the USAES, Tiffany decides to sign up for active service. Now she has to keep her secrets even though it hurts to do so.

Qualification.

Content: Violence, mild sexual abuse.

Legal: Daria MTV, Legion Of Superheroes Warner Brothers, Legion Of Lawndale Heroes Roentgen & Brother Grimace.

* * *

Tiffany felt herself sway a little as she struggled to maintain her balance. The now foul bag over her head meant she couldn't see anything that could help her maintain her position, she was entirely dependant on her sense of equilibrium, and that was almost non-existent thanks to unknown hours of sleep deprivation.

"WHAT WERE YOU DOING?" screamed the asshole next to her. She was just about beyond flinching when his voice nailed her ears like that. She had even gotten used to them discharging guns next to her ears, and these weren't blanks they were firing. Everythign going on around her reminded her how vulnerable she was at this point.

The Mk. 40 compliance band on her wrist meant that if she didn't want her captors to REALLY kick the shit out of her, she had to stand and not move when they hit, caned, whipped, drenched, or electrocuted her anyway.

The stick struck the back of her thighs again, but again, she was beyond flinching. They had her standing with her knees slightly bent, and her legs were burning from the constant tension her muscles had to maintain. Her shoulders and outstretched arms were also burning.

"YOU WILL TELL ME NOW OR YOU WILL TELL ME AFTER YOU PUT YOURSELF THROUGH SOME THOROUGHLY UNNECESSARY PAIN!"

"I'm sorry, I have no idea what you are talking-"

She was interrupted by an elbow strike to her back, just under her ribcage, and she fell over.

"GET UP!" He was now kicking her arms and legs, "GET UP! WHO TOLD YOU TO CHANGE POSITION! GET UP NOW!" Tiffany scrambled to get back into position again. The movement reawakened her limbs, but now everything was hurting more fiercely than just five seconds ago, and she again felt the urge to tell them what they were telling her to admit: That she and her companions were a team sent in to destroy an arms shipment, that the US had unofficially sanctioned this. "YOU WILL STAY RIGHT THERE UNTILL I TELL YOU TO MOVE!"

Tiffany didn't respond to this.

How much longer was this going to continue for?

There was a way for her to avoid the other stuff too.

Tell them what she was doing sneaking around within ten klicks of that explosion that happened.

This boat load of shoulder SAMs and RPG 7s had been blown up along with the truck of mines, more RPG 7s, 7.62mm rounds, and the enemy fuel dump. They had to do this by manually placing charges.

Boat was easy, just swim under it and stick the charge to it. This was a number of sheets of explosives, adhesive backed with an adhesive that would function while wet, The person setting these charges had then uncoiled the det-chord they were using to fuse the charges and tied that together with wire ties to a detonator which had been rigged to a delay element, bit more C-4 around that part to ensure the chord would properly initiate, the delay element had a pin-pull ignitor which a team mate of hers then pulled before he swam away.

The truck and the fuel dump were on land and where being guarded by twelve X-rays.

They had anticipated the possibility that they couldn't get right up under the truck and fuel dump and had rigged charges that could be effective from a distance. If they could get the charge under the vehicle, super-duper-excellent, but if they couldn't, then they had to be able to position it at a distance and point it at the target and it would have to be effective against the target.

They had considered having Tiffany simply phase through the soil, but the truck's underside was too high off the ground for the charge to go unnoticed, and merging explosives with soil would have had unknown effects on the explosives and the copper plate, they wanted to detonate the munitions on the truck so that they absolutely could not be used.

They amended it so that Tiffany would do all the land charges, she would leave the charges on the surface and dig out soil for any devices that needed to be in the ground, but Tiffany could simply float through the ground with just enough of her head for her to see where she was going protruding, she then places the charges on the surface, and moves back, uncoiling the det-chord as she moved back.

This was achieved with an 8mm copper plate backed with cast H6 and a hole drilled through both the plate and the charge, that served as a sight to help aim the charge and it received the detonator.

You get as close as possible, position the charge, using the local top soil to support one side, then you insert the detonator and move back, uncoiling det-chord as you go. In this case the delay element and detonator has been pre-assembled, it was long enough to reach the river, pull the ignitor at the appropriate time, and get out of there.

The plate would form an appropriately sized and speedy projectile that would detonate any explosive material in it's path, so all they had to do was aim roughly at the centre of the truck's cargo space. The fuel dump might be gasoline, diesel, jet-A, so they couldn't guarantee ignition if they didn't accompany the projectiles with an ignition source.

Five claymore mines, off the shelf, rigged together along with the ignitor system, claymores turn the fuel containers into colanders, ignitor was a Pringles tube full of thermite with a lump of C4 at the bottom with a detonator, but det-chord would destroy the thermite ignitor, so they instead rigged a small shaped charge and simply used the copper jet to ignite the thermite by means of friction. Thermite took up most of the tube, C4 took up the last 15mm, thing was buried in the ground so it would keep it's shape as the thermite burned, detonator initiates the C4 and throws the molten iron over the fuel puddle.

They aimed to get the charges to initiate within five seconds of each other. That simply meant having someone next to the boat waiting to pull the pin on that charge. If Tiffany had been compromised, the other two operatives across the river would provide covering fire as the other two ignited the delay elements on the charges they had planted and left. Bit of luck, they could hold the enemy's attention long enough for the delay elements to burn up.

They then all ignited the delay elements and left.

Exfil had been going all right, they found a vehicle, hotwired it, and were well on their way out, until all these enemy soldiers popped up out of nowhere.

One fired a flash-bang into the car from a grenade launcher attachment on their assault rifle, and the rest moved in while they were blind and deaf, and then the last thing Tiffany remembered was this powerful white hot pain in her neck.

When she awoke, she was face down in the back of a truck, hands and feet tied, bag over her head, headphones piping white noise at ear piercing volume, and this Mk. 40 compliance band on her wrist.

All this information told her that their worst case scenario had occurred.

Once the truck had arrived at … wherever … They had been pulled to their feet by the bag over their head being used as a choke ligature and pulled off the back of the truck, they were barely standing as their feet were still tied.

Well.

She assumed they were all going through this.

They had been captured … …

It had been … …

How long had it been?

Tiffany needed to get some sleep.

"EXTENDED PUSH UP!"

'Damn it!' Tiffany lowered her hands and extended her feet straight back, her arms slightly bent.

They usually kicked her in the crotch and her sides when she was in this position.

Sometimes they removed her hood and placed a plate of ravioli with a couple of slices of garlic bread and an ice cold glass of ultra-cola about a foot ahead of her. The food varied, but it was usually something delicious with a refreshing, thirst quenching drink, and she could have it if she just admitted what they were doing.

Other times they molested her, telling her that as long as they kept their secrets, they would not be considered prisoners of war, this would not be considered a war crime, they would simply be considered criminals with no right to any more protection than a citizen of the country they had invaded. That was obviously bullshit, they were just as bad on POWs as they were on their own citizens.

And there was no way to sleep when in any of the positions they had made her stand in.

"WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? WE KNOW YOU ATTACKED OUR SUPPLY POINT!"

"No, I was not involved in th-"

He kicked her in the stomach, causing her to bend a little.

"DO NOT GIVE ME ANY MORE OF YOUR LIES! IF YOU'RE NOT A SOLDIER, YOU'RE A TERRORIST!"

"I was not involve-"

He kicked her in one of her breasts, it felt like the gland had been split against her ribs.

"LET'S START AGAIN! WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY COUNTRY?"

"I'm just here to see the sights, I have no hostile intent."

"BULLSHIT! I KNOW FULL WELL WHAT YOU WERE DOING, AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO GET AWAY WITH IT! AND YOU KNOW YOU'RE NOT GETTING AWAY WITH IT! AND STILL YOU REFUSE TO TELL US WHAT YOU WERE REALLY UP TO? ON YOUR FEET! STAR POSITION!"

She scrambled to the previous position, stood up, arms outstretched, feet apart, legs slightly bent. She almost fell over as she stood up, her head felt cold as her cardiovascular system was a bit slow in keeping up with her new position.

'How much longer could this possibly continue?'

About … … several seconds after she had stood up, the hood came off, and Master Chief Keller stood before her, the guy who was probably interrogating her stood off to the side. Tiffany was unsure if the exercise was really over so she maintained her position.

He held up a flat plastic snap closed box and said "congratulations."

Tiffany stood at attention. The master chief handed her the box and said "You passed, well done." Tiffany accepted the box and inspected it's contents. The trident-anchor-pistol-eagle badge glittered in the dim light.

"Thank you master chief," said Tiffany.

"Now get yourself cleaned up and dressed, you look and smell terrible."

"Aye aye master chief," said Tiffany as she stood to attention again, closing the box, and she followed the interrogator, a third class petty officer, out. The ambient light almost blinded her, and she was not familiar with this location, but she was eventually led to a dormitory with a communal shower in the back. The rest of her team were already in there getting cleaned up.

They cheered her as she entered and she smiled back as she took a shower head and started taking soap from the accompanying dispenser.

* * *

As Tiffany lay up on her bed, her badge in it's open case resting on her abdomen, she reflected on how she had ended up here.

USAES had been exciting and had really helped her. The Legion had also been good, and she was still a Legionnaire, but she also felt that a military career would give her a sense of routine. But she started to tire of routine, and decided she wanted to try something a bit less routine. In fact, she wanted something that more closely resembled superhero work, she had superpowers for Christ sake, and she was sweeping decks and collecting spent brass from the chaingun stations and firing range. She wanted something that would test her. It still wasn't public knowledge that the US Navy allowed women to apply to become SEALs, and that was because they wanted to be able to disguise their teams as ordinary civilians. They wanted to be unexpected. There had been a number of decades where they weren't, but eventually someone used to the idea of women being equally capable as men got in a position to change that and the change was made.

She recalled her half decade long path from being a USAES cadet to her new posting in the SEALs.

She had taken interest in explosives after she had made contact with Quinn while on leave from USAES. Quinn had taken this explosives course that this retired(?) SBS operative was running back at Legion Tower.

A man named 'Betty'. SBS, Special Boat Service, were basically Navy SEALS, only British. Special warfare usually consisted of sneaking around behind enemy lines, killing, capturing or rescuing people as ordered or blowing things up as ordered, so this guy would really know his explosives.

The course had been comprehensive. Within six months of her enlistment, Tiffany took a Navy demolitions course and had found it equally fascinating. She had to take it twice, along with the extended firearms courses, but eventually she felt ready to go for the SEAL course.

She opened the other box in her possession. The one containing her Legion badge.

Her commanders had always expressed concern over her dual loyalty, she was loyal to both the Legion and the United States of America DOD.

She had always maintained that the Legion was good for humanity and that included the United States, there was no split.

The USAES and the Legion were in close co-operation anyway, and had remained so all this time. Tiffany had another reason for joining the Navy: She felt it would improve relations between USAES and the Legion, closer co-operation improved Legion procedures, tactics, and procurement strategy. Besides, USAES had helped her so much, it seemed only fair. Both Daria and Armalin had warned her against doing this out of gratitude, although for different reasons: Armalin, being a Marine, valued absolute loyalty: If you're not 200 committed to serving your country, don't pledge to that effect. Semper Fidelis. And Daria was concerned Tiffany could find herself being ordered to do something wrong and Tiffany would have to do it and get jailed for war crimes or not do it and get jailed for disobedience.

Then the two of them promptly got into an argument about the integrity of military courts and the JAG corps.

She couldn't wear the Legion badge on her uniform, but she was damn proud she now had the right to wear the SEAL badge.

She also remembered her conversations with Daria.

Daria did not trust the US DOD. Tiffany had felt a bit apprehensive as a result of this. That encounter with General Bakerson hadn't have helped. It certainly didn't impress Tiffany. But her time at USAES told her idiots such as Bakerson didn't take up the entire military. Aside from that, she was going to encounter people who didn't like her or thought she was stupid everywhere she went.

She was building a substantial amount of evidence that she was not as stupid as she sounded.

Daria had acknowledged she wasn't as stupid as she sounded just before she first left for the USAES. Pity Daria didn't need to know she was a SEAL.

She closed both boxes and placed them with the rest of her kit and went to sleep.

* * *

End.


	2. Investigation

Constraints: Some point after Tiffany attends USAES

Constraints: Follows 'Qualification'

Synopsis: Three Legionnaires infiltrates the headquarters of an evil company, but not in close co-operation.

Investigation.

Content: Mild swearing, implied sexual activity.

Legal: Daria MTV, Legion Of Superheroes Warner Brothers, Legion Of Lawndale Heroes Roentgen & Brother Grimace.

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Tina Dandrel looked around the party venue in the Luther building, Lexcorp's corporate headquarters.

The party was being held to celebrate the success of a charity project Lex Luther had commissioned in order to make his company look good.

The reality was that Lex Luther was an assaholic that caused more havoc than he fixed, and now he was up to something else, something involving Syria.

They didn't know what, but Syria was still fairly hostile towards Israel, and Israel was a US ally.

Tina frowned a little for a second when she thought about how much of a nuisances Israel was, the only reason the US was their ally was to stop Israel from panicking and cutting loose with nukes. The result was that there was nothing the United States could do to discipline Israel, and, for example, when Israel carpet bombed Lebanon, all the US could do was smile and restock Israel's magazines.

That side of the situation was out of their hands, but Tina did have an opportunity to do something about Syria, and this was it.

"Tiffany?" asked a familiar voice.

'Damn it,' thought Tina, well, Tiffany actually, but NO one here was supposed to know this.

Tiffany turned to face Daria and Charles and said "Sorry, you have the wrong person, I'm Dandrel. Tina, Dandrel."

"No, I can tell-" started Charles.

"Sorry, my mistake," said Daria, "Come on Charles."

"What?" asked Charles.

Daria grabbed his elbow and turned him away from Tiffany saying in a strained voice "You're here with me! Now, come on!"

Charles looked somewhat confused but eventually complied.

Tiffany briefly wondered what Daria and Charles were doing here.

Tiffany headed towards the buffet table located towards the back of the space.

The Luther building reception area was this big space extending up two stories, there was a walkway around it leading to a number of offices where some of the logistics were done.

Some of the logistics, the kind you'd be okay with LEOs looking at.

Ground floor had a number of security stations and security resting areas so that anyone who had broken in trying to break out would be more likely to be intercepted in force. Another similar station was located around the back near the large/heavy goods receiving area.

And Tiffany had to get to the CEO's office located right next to the helipad. The office had thick diamond/polycarbonate composite windows with liquid crystal shades to create privacy when desired, there were also a number of pneumatically actuated adamantium panels that would rapidly enclose the outside and inside of the windows at the push of a button or the ping of a detector.

The helipad was up a flight of stairs which had an accompanying wheelchair ramp snaking around, whole thing surrounded by pink granite topped with planters with exotic flowers and ferns, it met the legal standards of e helipad, but looked kind of nice.

The reception area was different, the ceilings were a pattern of star shaped mirror panels with powder white spaces between, the mirror stars had emerald or emerald looking sea urchin like things in the centre, the walls had mirror rhombus shapes and black granite between, the reception desk which had had a podium stage temporarily constructed over it for the party, there was a live music stand off to the left.

A live music stand occupied by Mystic Spyral.

'What the … ?'

They were dressed in tuxedoes and looked well expensive. None of them seemed to have their mikes positioned for any of them to be vocalists, Trent was on a violin, Jesse on cello, Ma … was it Max or Nick? … Other two sax and oboe.

They were doing a tune right now.

Tiffany listened.

The melody was … … Icebox Woman?

Tiffany almost burst out laughing.

After she suppressed it, she made her way to the buffet table and put in the appearance of mingling at the party, she couldn't simply make a beeline for the toilets as soon as she got there, it would look suspicious. Also she wanted those in security to get a bit bored and a bit complacent.

Bit of line hypnosis and they'll probably dismiss instances where things float or computers function as if being operated by an invisible person as imagination figments or something.

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"That's Tiffany," whispered Charles.

"Yes, but she's here as Tina, so go along with it. … Oh here's a thought, what if she's here to aid Lex instead of investigate him?"

"Why would she do that?" asked Charles.

"I don't know, we lost track of her after she joined the Navy, what the hell is she doing here under an alias?" said Daria.

"So … What do we thing? She's helping Lex?"

"If she is, she'll have nothing on us anyway, Lex asked for Legion reps, and that's what we're here as, we're still go. I'm going to start getting into the security goon's heads now, as soon as I make my selection I'll have him hand you his documents and go to the toilets, five minutes later you also go to the toilet, make like him, and proceed with infil."

"Okay."

'Trent, how's the view?' thoughtcast Daria.

'View's nominal, what's Tiffany doing here?'

'Unknown, track her, but also watch out for anyone else following us, we'll begin our infil in ten minutes.'

'Have that,' thought Trent. Trent knew he wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but even he was concerned about the fact they had been INVITED to the place they were investigating. The rest of his band were here as support (A gig's a gig, well worth learning classical music for,) but Trent was the only band member who knew the Legion was here to spy. Jesse would probably be alright knowing this, he had a natural poker face and was calmer than his mom, but Max and Nick were likely to screw up and compromise them all. It was like they had an internal gland that produced a steady stream of angel dust.

Hmm.

Gotta be a song in that, surely.

Still, Lex might be expecting them to attempt to infiltrate the building.

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Tiffany went to the toilets and entered a stall. After she locked the door, she checked the spacers under the seat. There was a gap around the base. Probably a quantum pill in there, so she'd have to do something here. She pulled a number of hairpins from her purse and sat on the toiler seat. With her pressure squeezing the quantum pills she suspected were there, she phased the pins through the seat and the spacers and left them merged in place. Tiffany had a microtorch lighter powered blowtorch in her purse, she could use that to heat the pins to remove them when she returned, she'd then use an emery board to file the bumps down.

Now it was time to go to work.

She left the toilet through the wall behind her stall and started to make her way upstairs.

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'Ready?' thought cast Daria.

'Ready,' replied Charles.

'Okay, exit the toilets and go to the ground floor security office, we need to dope the camera guys, or they may spot your character's not on station, don't knock them out, just make them stupid,' thoughtcast Daria.

'On it,' replied Charles.

Daria looked around the dance floor. Her usually irritated appearance could easily be explained by "My date's probably screwing that Tina girl in the broom closet while I have to stand around like a dork," so she just ran with it. The real source of her irritation was that they had been invited here right when they were trying to investigate apparent problems USAES cadets had described on their exchange visits to the Legion, missing time, apparent symptoms of rohypnol dosing, but none of the tests came back positive for rohypnol, even though the sample was drawn well within time.

Their investigation had led them to conclude that Lex Luther was involved, and now they were trying to find out.

The fact they were being invited to this event concerned the crap out of Daria.

Daria recalled the conversation they had had, it was now Brittany and Stacy as prez and veep respectively.

"I'm concerned about the fact we've been invited to this guy's office," said Daria.

"Daria, please, this isn't the time for your doom and gloom crap," said Quinn.

"Errr, yes it is, and this 'Doom and gloom crap' you hate so much is how we anticipate problems-" started Daria.

"Dar-" interrupted Quinn.

"AND FIX THEM!" finished Daria. Now she had an opening Daria asked "Which is worse for morale? Anticipating and fixing problems, or wandering around with your head up your ass until something goes spectacularly cataclysmally wrong?"

Eventually Quinn asked "Well, what do you suggest I do?"

"Send me," said Daria. "And Charles."

They looked somewhat apprehensive.

"We're the only two in the group suitable for this mission, I can pull security codes and other things out of Lex's security forces heads, and guide Charles, disguised as a guard, as he infiltrates the building."

"Won't the security boss notice the guy's not where he's supposed to be?" asked Brittany.

"Yeah … Maybe we can drug him," said Daria.

"Won't they notice he's asleep?" asked Jane.

"We won't knock him out then, just make him drowsy so he can't remember what's supposed to be going on," said Daria, "See? Doom and gloom not so bad after all. Now, what else is wrong with the plan?"

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Daria and Charles were fairly prominent Legion members, and they were even wearing Legion badges, so they had to be there as legion members with Lex's knowledge. As soon as Tiffany Exfils, she'll have to request some leave and find out what's going on.

Tiffany arrived at Lex's office.

No one here.

Okay.

She sat herself down under his desk next to his computer and felt around for the hard drives. There were two of them.

Okay, no problem, her makeup compact looking data stick could carry all of it. Aside from that, people rarely use up all of their hard drive on their work computer anyway.

This guy might, though, because he was the boss, he could get away with filling his hard drive with all kinds of frivolous crap.

She unplugged the ribbons and pulled the ribbon out of a concealed part of her purse and she turned the computer on.

The computer would have trouble loading without the hard drives connected but that was okay, she just needed the power to be on in order to allow her to operate the hard drives.

She connected the compact make up kit with a USB and she phased her arm and the ribbon through the chassis and hooked up the first hard drive. She couldn't remove her arm until she heard the compact click that it was finished, or the ribbon would be irretrievably fused with the computer chassis.

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Charles entered the office at the top and looked around.

He then looked at the computer under the desk.

It was on.

'Daria, Charles, computer's turned on, Lex might be running something, gonna find out what before I proceed.'

'Have that,' thought Daria.

He turned the monitor on.

The computer was stalled mid start up, the apparent problem being that the source of the OS was missing.

'Daria, Charles, the hard drives are missing, computer's stalled mid start-up, I think Lex might have removed them, I'm going to start looking for them.'

He turned a finger into an endoscope and slid it into one of the drawers.

Each drawer turned up nothing.

He then heard a chirp from under the desk.

He looked again at the screen.

No change.

"Charles, what are you doing here?"

Charles turned around to the source of the whisper he just heard.

There was nothing there. "Tiffany? What are you doing here?"

"I'm guessing the same thing as you, I'll be done in a minute."

"The hard drives are missing."

"No, the hard drives are disconnected, I'll reconnect them before I leave."

'Daria, Charles, Tiffany's here to spy too. She'll be done soon.'

'Tiffany? … Okay, since she knows what we're here for already, I guess we have to trust her. … Encounter many guards on your way up?'

'No, hardly any, in fact, I hardly saw any on the roster when I entered the security room.'

'Yeah, the guy you're replacing seemed a bit confused about the low strength they're in tonight. I don't think the intel's where we're supposed to find it. In fact, his office bothers me: The windows and adamantium shutters may protect the office from all kinds of attack, but if someone uses a laser, the adamantium shutters won't react quickly enough, and ABLs no longer use a guide laser to calibrate the mirror now, the office is a decoy.'

'And so's the guy who works in it,' thought Charles.

'Right, When Tiffany's done, give the appearance of going for the information, but then I want you to start exploring, try to locate Lex's true work station.'

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Tiffany headed out with her bounty.

The actual space used was 25 of her potential payload, so she wondered if she should get more.

In case the stuff on Lex's hard drive … …

That's the nagging feeling that something was wrong with the whole thing, Lex's office, too grandiose, too obvious, it's a god damn flare!

'Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID! … … … … Ho-kay, now what? Where the hell is Lex likely to hide his Evil Deeds files?'

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'Daria, I've been looking at all the workspaces, and NOTHING'S jumping out.' Thought Charles.

'Okay, maybe I can find their IT support manager or someone who regularly sees him in their office, if he's never at the same workstation twice then that either means he stores the files on the building's servers or he stores it offsite, if he stores it offsite, maybe we can work out where by going through the internet logs, find out what he accessed.'

'Hey Daria, you know who might, just possibly, possibly might, know where Lex Luther possibly keeps his evil files? … Hmmmmm? … LEX LUTHER!!'

'Yeah, if we get that desperate, I will go in his head, what I'm concerned about is that he might have some form of countermeasure and we will have, to, run, like, intercourse. It's possible he doesn't, but I don't want to run that risk if I don't have to.'

"Miss Morgendorffer?"

'Excuse me Charles,' Thought Daria before she turned towards Lex and said "Hi Mr. Luther. Nice buffet here."

"Glad you're enjoying yourself. I thought two Legionnaires were coming," said Lex.

"Yeah, but the other legionnaire's hornier than a rabbit on Viagra and is most likely shagging another of your female guests as we speak, leaving me to balloon on snacks, how's your evening going?" responded Daria in this really fake non-chalant tone.

"Wow … … Well, my evening's going fine … do you think your partner will be around in time to say a few words on the efforts of the charitable achievement's and efforts we're celibrating tonight?"

"We can but hope," said Daria.

"Okay, crossing fingers and moving on, enjoy the party," said Lex before he moved on.

Daria turned away from him and thoughtcast 'Okay, beginning search.'

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Tiffany had seen Charles far enough away from the decoy office to determine that Charles hadn't even uploaded one of the hard drives.

They know.

They also don't trust her enough to fill her in on it.

Fair enough, she couldn't let them know what she was up to either, she had an obligation to keep the secrets she knew.

She couldn't just tell them she's a Navy SEAL.

She wondered briefly if Daria would believe it anyway. Daria was undeniably smart, but Stacy mentioned that Daria had moments of unbelievable gullibility, like on the Outlast exercise. Armalin said there wouldn't be any flags in the trees, and Daria decided it wasn't worth looking in the trees anyway. That was just painful. She might also buy the Navy's statement that they don't allow women to become Navy SEALs.

Was it Daria or Charles that decided that the grandiose office was a decoy?

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'Multiple stations, okay, give me one,' thought Charles.

'Workstation 34 S, 03, 10, five days ago, 13:00 to 15:45,' thought Daria.

'Okay,' Thought Charles. He made his way to the 34th floor and entered south room three.

He disconnected the computer and reconfigured it so he could access the ethernet logs without it being recorded.

'Daria, I'm at the workstation, by the way, what are we doing about the video recording of the evening?'

'I had the security boss hit play instead of record when he changed the tapes just before we got to the party.'

'Niiiiiiice. … Okay, powering up.'

After about a minute, Charles thought 'Okay, found the drive designation, what I don't know how to do is access it without it's access being recorded. There's about twenty drives, nothing describing their content in their names, just drives E-W, and the one Lex was accessing was L.'

'I would like to corroborate that, but we're going to start running out of time, go to their server room, see if you can find it, bear in mind that they may have mislabelled their drives specifically to evade us,' thought Daria.

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Tiffany followed Charles down the stairs.

She knew he was looking for a server, but she didn't know which, because whatever Daria and Charles was talking about, he wasn't vocalising.

She looked at her watch.

Then she grabbed Charles and phased them both through the floors.

"What- … Tiffany?" Asked a stunned Charles.

"You're taking too long! Server room, right?"

"Right," said Charles.

'Tiffany's with you?'

'Yes, apparently we're taking too long, she doesn't trust the data she collected either.'

'Okay, I guess we're trusting her again.'

They entered the server room.

'Okay, looks like they're not labe- … ' "hah!"

"What?" 'What?' asked Daria and Tiffany Simultaneously.

'1101001, here we go,' thought Charles as he drew his Padd and an Ethernet cable.

'K in ASCII code, gotcha,' responded Daria.

"All I see are binary strin- … Okay, with you now," said Tiffany.

'Okay, I have a matching access window, give me some more times and workstations just quickly so I can corroborate.'

Daria did this and Charles was eventually satisfied.

'Okay, Downloading now.'

There was silence from Daria.

Eventually Daria said 'I've been called on stage, I have to stop thought casting or the whole room will see my eyes glow, I'll resume at earliest convenience.'

'Have that,' thought Charles, not sure if Daria received that. "Okay, Tiffany, hack away," said Charles as he stowed his gear.

"Thank you. By the way, how's Daria explaining our absence?"

"Bad case of the shits."

"We both have the shits at the same time for the same duration?" asked Tiffany.

"Well, what do you suggest?" asked Charles.

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"And so, the struggle continues to correct a situation nthat should not exist anyway. It's good that we've gotten this far, just be aware there's more to do. Thankyou," said Daria as she wound up her speech. It had been matter of fact, but not out and out rude. She wanted to have a dig at all the corporate heads in the room, but this was also on camera and none of them would put up with all this being pointed out to them anyway, they were all aware of all this, all that would happen is she would get bounced before Charles could exfil.

Before anyone could applaud though, a broom closet burst open and Charles and Tiffany fell out, Charles's trousers and pants around his ankles, Tiffany's skirt raised, but both fell onto the floor and none of their bits came into view.

Tiffany Looked shocked and eventually the two of them sheepishly fixed their attire and stood up.

As Daria looked around, Lex gave a sympathetic wince, and Daria moved to meet Charles as he and Tiffany descended a staircase.

"I think it's time we were going, don't you?" said Daria, sounding characteristically annoyed.

"Err, yes dear," agreed Charles.

"Bye," simpered Tiffany, waving.

As Daria and Charles left, Daria whispered "You didn't really, did you?"

"Jealous my dear?"

Daria frowned.

"Nah, just an act. Cleaned out the drive, got a look at some of the data as Tiffany downloaded her copies."

"Yeah?" asked Daria.

"Imagine Hezbullah with ranks and ranks of people with Betty's capabilities."

"Damn! That … … Okay, what do we think of Tiffany?"

"Some point she said 'The only easy day was yesterday,' you don't think she's a SEAL do you?"

"Picture her making it through hell week?" asked Daria.

"Good point."

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End.


	3. Crystal Clear

Constraints: Follows 'Investigation'

Constraints: Follows 'Investigation'.

Synopsis: A reunion between three Legionnaires and an X-Ray.

Crystal Clear.

Content: Unknown.

Legal: Legion Of Superheroes Warner Brothers, Daria MTV, Legion Of Lawndale Heroes Roentgen and Brother Grimace.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"What were the rest of the Legion doing here?" asked the Admiral.

"Same thing we were sir," replied Tiffany.

"And you didn't tell them anything?"

"No sir. We acquired the same intel they did, when Daria observed us in field and made psychic contact, we co-ordinated and achieved our objectives," said Tiffany.

"How did Daria detect you?" asked the Admiral.

"I was infiltrating the Hezbollah facility with the explosives when I saw the door open and close behind me, when I pointed a gun at the person's location, she de-cloaked and revealed herself to be Brittany, Brittany was in psychic contact with Daria and Daria made contact with me, we quickly agreed that the Legion would help the rest of my team divert Hezbollah attention from us while Brittany and myself place our charges, I placed my charges where Brittany had no access, later BDA indicated all our charges were effective. It also explains why the rest of those superpower jammers went down after we only got three of them."

"Do they know you are a SEAL?"

"No sir."

"Are you certain?"

"While it's inescapable that I am working as a special forces operative, they have no means to work out which organisation I am working for, and I have added no new information they can use to narrow the range. Sir, I could be a mercenary for all they know."

Eventually the admiral said "Okay, fair enough. I have another assignment for you. You are uniquely placed to be able to execute this one. We need you to ascertain and verify the location of the soul crystal that contains Lou Cypher."

"Sir? Any reason to believe is has moved?" asked Tiffany.

"Any reason to believe it hasn't?" asked the admiral.

"No sir. One thing to bear in mind is that Jane and Sandi have kept it's location secret in order to reduce the number of people able to betray it's location as far as possible. They're unlikely to tell me where they put it."

"Any personal objections to carrying out this mission?"

"No sir," replied Tiffany.

'Screw yeah! They're my friends,' she thought.

"We have yet to reach a decision as to weather or not to move it, but we are certain that we don't want our enemies to find it, so any information pertaining to our decision and any action we decide to take will be highly compartmentalised, is that understood?" asked the admiral.

"Yes sir."

"Okay, you have your orders, David Allen will co-ordinate with you psychically, you need any extra kit you can not obtain from within Legion tower or you did not anticipate going in, tell him, and he will get it to you, any questions?"

"No sir."

"Dismissed."

"Sir," said Tiffany as she stood to attention and left the admiral's office.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Tiffany waited as the Gridrunner landed at the airstrip, the lower halves of the ramjet cones forward to reduce if not avoid the intake of FOD from poorly maintained airstrips. She was back in her Legion clothes, her navy whites were back at base, her bag had three sets of civilian attire and 12 changes of underwear.

The Gridrunner slowed to taxiing speed and the starboard forward door opened while the aircraft was still in motion, the aircraft turned right to bring it to the side of the runway in preparation for it's about turn.

Not waiting for the aircraft to stop, Tiffany boarded, ascending the stairs as the aircraft turned left. Jane hit the button to close the door and then hit the intercom and said "Passenger aboard."

"Okay," replied Charles, "strap in, taking off as soon as I'm lined up."

Jane and Tiffany strapped into the few seats that remained in place.

Glancing back before she sat down, Tiffany asked "new L1s?" There were two L1s along with their folded wings and fins on special palettes. The reason they transported fighters in this manner was to delay observation of the aircraft's modifications at least until they were required on an operation and because the fighters weren't as fast as the Gridrunner, so this was faster and less stressful on the pilots. The palettes were designed that they could be towed in the Gridrunner's slipstream on telescoping arms (any flex in the members securing the palettes to the Gridrunner would oscillate) and thus launched and recovered in flight. Gridrunner had to drop to mach 2 or less to do this, but that meant one aircraft suddenly became three.

This displaced other payloads, including people, they often ended up fitting wherever they could as the L1s were extended out the back on their palettes or retracted back into the cargospace.

"Same ones, new skin, they now have holographic LED clusters," said Jane as the engines spooled to mil thrust, and they then felt the kick as the afterburners rasped into life. They could have just done a vertical landing and take off, but dynamic was preferred where available because it saves fuel as all the thrust goes into building forward inertia.

"Right," said Tiffany. "Told Daria I'm inbound?"

"Nope, you can tell her, preferably with a prank," said Jane.

"Gotcha," said Tiffany, "so who's prez and veep?"

"Brittany's president, Stacy's vice president."

"Daria ever have a go?"

"No," laughed Jane.

"Always the critic, never the example?" asked Tiffany.

"Performance anxiety, by the ton," said Jane, "She lets me into her mind occasionally, if she were in charge, she'd have to be on top of everything. She seems to like the role of snagger too much to give that up. She has also evolved some of our best plans on operations, she and Brittany have ended up working together to generate a plan or have ended up ending opposing teams in war games."

"She still an asshole?" asked Tiffany.

"Mmmmm …. She's improving."

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Are you nuts? There's no way to know what Tiffany's organisation is into."

"She helped us demolish that terrorist mutant factory," said Brittany, "what does that tell you?"

"That she could just as easily be working for Mossad, or a rival terrorist group that doesn't want Hezbollah to have the best toys, or some crime syndicate that would be next on Hezbollah's kill list when they were no longer needed to smuggle ordnance and personal-"

"She's also a Legionnaire, Daria, do you think she would be into anything that conflicts with that?" asked Brittany.

"It's Tiffany, Brittany, just because she's gotten better doesn't mean she's smart enough to be non-malleable to the first cult that recruits her."

"Iiiiiissssss thaaaaaaat aaaaaaa faaaaaaaact?"

" … Right, that's just super, that's … Hi Tiffany," said Daria.

Tiffany was right behind Daria. She said "If you make real nice, I'm sure David Koresh will forgive your sins and allow you into heaven."

Daria borrowed Tiffany's powers and sunk through the floor.

"YOU JOINING US JANE?" asked Brittany.

Jane entered, doubled over with laughter, "Aww, that was just classic, Where's Daria?"

Tiffany got on her hands and knees and poked her head through the floor, before standing up and saying "Downstairs, punching the walls."

Jane laughed real loud at this.

"She'll get over this," said Tiffany.

"Welcome back," said Brittany, "gonna be staying long?"

"If that's okay with you," said Tiffany.

"Of course, you're still a Legionnaire."

Insert Scene Separator Here

"How's the fist?" asked Tiffany as she caught up with Daria.

"I suppose everyone hates me again," replied Daria.

"No, it's just you being stuck up again, everyone's probably already over it, or bracing for weeks of you taking cheap shots at me for my entire visit," said Tiffany.

"Now you're making me out to be some kind of brat," said Daria.

"You are. Sorry, but you have a problem in directing your frustration when even the slightest thing causes you embarrassment and you put all your effort into fighting everyone else to make them sound even worse," said Tiffany.

"WHERE DO YOU GET THAT? YOU HAVEN'T EVEN BEEN AROUND FOR HALF A DECADE!" replied Daria.

"THE NAVY, REMEMBER? I JOINED UP AND ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS I LEARNED IS HOW TO REIGN IN EGO SO I CAN GET THE JOB DONE!" replied Tiffany.

Eventually Daria said "Now who's being snooty?"

"Fair enough, but tell me you at least get what I'm saying here?"

"I do. … Okay. Sorry I kept doing that. … Hi Tiffany, how've you been?"

"Good, good, you?"

"Usual, I make good plans but few friends and even those barely put up with me, you've changed since you left."

"I have?"

"Yeah, you're more confident, you got this whole Jane Bond thing going," said Daria.

"Yeah, I get a new boyfriend every mission, whole stable's worth of Blum-Deckler boys … Probably shouldn't have told you that. … Can you forget you heard that? Don't think I want to kill you, I kind of like you."

"Could try displacing it. What can you tell me?"

"Wellll … … I'm going to be around for about three weeks. … … About a year ago I completed the Navy demolitions course, I'd like to compete with Quinn on a blast-off, compare our methods."

"I'll talk to Brittany and Quinn, see if we can set it up," said Daria.

"Oh I already … " said Tiffany.

"Probably best it not come from me anyway I guess," said Daria.

"You do have influence, Daria, and any time you do take control of a battle it usually goes just fine, and that's because at that point you're focused on winning the fight. … How's your flight training? You certified on fast jets yet?"

"Yes," replied Daria.

"There a two seater L1?" asked Tiffany.

"Yes."

"Bet you can't make me barf," said Tiffany.

"How much?" asked Daria.

"Four giant stuffed crust full range meat pizzas," said Tiffany.

"Suit up and meet me downstairs in ten minutes," said Daria as she ran off.

Tiffany walked to the supply room to pick up a flight suit, opening a sachet of ginger powder and swallowing it's contents. "Probably going to need to procure some pot to get through all that. … Hmm."

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Daria? What are you doing?" asked Jane as she walked in on Daria removing some leads from the back seat of an L1b trainer.

"Removing the leads from the VDUs, I have four pizzas riding on a wave of puke from Tiffany," said Daria.

"What?" asked Jane.

Just then Mack entered saying "There's a massive storm cell one hundred and fifty klicks east of here, will that do you?"

"You're helping her?" asked Jane.

"Apparently, Daria, what am I helping you with? And why are you removing the VDU leads from the back seat instruments of that fighter?"

"Tiffany bet me four pizzas that I can't make her puke, let's see now, sensory deprivation, wind shear, vortices, microbursts … "

"Great … … You'd better clean that plane when you're done, Stacy in a temper is … well … Stacy in a temper."

Mack and Jane eventually walked off, passing Tiffany as she entered, dressed in some basic flight gear. "Ready?" she asked.

Daria pocketed the last of the leads and said "Flight 666 to 'why the hell did I agree to this' is now boarding,"

Insert Scene Separator Here

Tiffany wondered how she would be feeling about now if she hadn't consumed the ginger powder.

She still felt nauseous, every time the aircraft changed direction her brain tried desperately to connect it with something she was seeing, but there was no fixed reference to see, just grey, slightly darker grey, slightly lighter grey, and the occasional buzz as they flew through a load of hailstones.

They hadn't emerged from the clouds since they had entered, although the size of the clouds they had entered prevented that from being a surprise, this was a proper storm cell, occasionally they entered a vortex and it was obvious it was a vortex because they were spinning but the hail stones appeared static relative to their field of view.

"COME ON, PUKE DAMN IT!" shouted Daria, interrupting the white noise that otherwise sounded through the comm system.

The noise was interrupted again … … several seconds later by the flight computer telling them "Bingo, bingo."

Daria's groan interrupted the white noise again, and they levelled out.

Several minutes later, Tiffany saw sky and the ground again. She felt the nausea abate as her brain unified her equilibrium with her visual input again.

"I'll share the pizza with you," said Tiffany.

As they continued home, Daria said "You know, then Major Armalin, the day when we were introduced to him, told me that if you don't get motion sickness when turned all over the place, there's something wrong with you."

"You don't have to be mad to work here, but it is advantageous," replied Tiffany.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Tiffany returned to her room with what was left of her two pizzas.

It was well awkward, she had learned tons from Daria but she couldn't share anything after her entry into SEAL training. All she could say about her current situation was "Oh, this and that, odd job here and there." And "I recently investigated Lex in connection with a conspiracy to sell Gene sequencing tech and metahuman DNA programs to Hezbollah."

The look on Daria's face when she 'revealed' her involvement in operations that Daria had met her on and therefore obviously knew about was just eeeeeeeeeeeeeeviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiilllllllllllllll … … … l.

Tiffany was now full from her first pizza and left the second one on the desk. Time to go to work.

She knew from experience what kind of interaction she had with the soul crystal, she was unable to phase through it, and apparently she was immune to any effect it would have on anyone else. All she had to do was find it and report it's exact location to her commanders.

Jane and Sandi were the only ones that already knew where it was, no one else knew it's location and anyone who hadn't had any dealings with it weren't to be told, this information was already highly compartmentalised. She expected her commanders would reloc- … …

What exactly were they going to do with it?

Tiffany could imagine some means by which it could be disposed of and how the routes could evade surveillance or investigation, and there were plenty of subduction zones to drop it into, the crystal could basically be rendered inaccessible for the next few thousand to billion years, depending on weather or not it would end up being carried back to the surface by a volcanic eruption.

She shrugged and stepped into the walls.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Sandi was awoken by the alarms and she got up, grabbing three PFTs and triplicating as she left her room. The centre Sandi checked a PDA as the other two watched up and down the corridor.

Daria, Jane, Tom, Mack, Stacy, Charles and Brittany emerged from their rooms, Daria, Charles and Brittany carrying their own PFTs.

"Right, basement five, MOVE!" said Centre Sandi as the other two formed on her and the others split, Mack and Stacy followed Sandis, Daria Jane, Tom, Charles and Brittany went for the stairwell on the opposite side of the building to the stairwell Sandis group went for.

'Stacy, Daria, holding on stairs, basement five.'

'Received,' thought Stacy.

Sandi's group arrived at their forward attack position. 'Daria, Stacy, holding on stairs, basement five.'

'Okay all Legionnaires, I have control, stand by, stand by, go.'

They emerged from the stairwells on both ends of the corridors and they quickly realised that the contact was Tiffany.

Sheepishly, Tiffany said "Sorry about that, had to walk, walked through the wrong wall."

"If you're having trouble sleeping, I could stick you in a coma for the night," said Daria.

"No you won't," said Brittany, "Everyone to bed, Tiffany, please use the doors from now on."

"Boss," acknowledged Tiffany.

Everyone dispersed and returned to their rooms. Daria looked at Tiffany, but then resumed her course back to her room.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Are you serious?" asked Jane as she and Daria conversed the following morning.

Daria pointed at her own face.

Jane winced and said "Daria … you ALWAYS … … wear your serious face."

Daria sighed and said "What was she doing walking through walls on that level?"

"I don't know, what am I doing flying through the woods every now and then?"

Insert Scene Separator Here

"So what did I set off?" asked Tiffany.

"Oh, well we have these lasers in vacuum pipes in a grid around the secure area, if someone can become intangible but not invisible, they'll block or otherwise disrupt the laser," said Stacy.

"Yeah? What else have you got?" asked Tiffany.

"We have a grid of linear Geiger counters, so if anyone uses X or gamma rays to see through, that'll be detected, Radar won't make it through the structure because we have a Faraday cage in place around everything, windows are thinner obviously," said Stacy.

"Cool," said Tiffany, "what if someone tries to teleport in?"

"Depends on the effects of their powers, floor has a tactile grid to sense what's in the room, any change will set off alarms, sound will also set off alarms if it's source can not be accounted for, there's three layers of acoustic insulation, two in the walls, one on the walls, whole thing's on springs with dense sheets to absorb any sound energy travelling up the springs, it's complicated, but the whole thing's designed to isolate the interior space from sensors and to make it easier to detect activity going on within the room," said Stacy.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"We need to be a bit more careful with Tiffany, what's she likely to be after?" asked Daria.

"I dunno, this is your thing," said Jane.

"This isn't a damn quiz, Jane, find out. … What if it's the soul crystal?" asked Daria.

This got Jane's attention.

"Talk to Sandi, review your security on it, if Tiffany's been tasked with stealing it or locating it-"

"WHY WOULD SHE DO THAT? SHE'S A LEGIONNAIRE!" replied Jane.

"AND THAT PERCLUDES THE POSSIBILITY THAT SHE'S CHANGED DOES IT?" asked Daria.

"YE- … … … Damn it, no it doesn't, but what about you?" asked Jane.

"What about me in what context?" asked Daria.

"You never really got used to the idea that members of the Fashion Club can achieve intellectual feats."

After a short strangled groan, Daria said "Jane, not again, I'm trying to alert you to a potential problem, and every time I do that, I always seem to get 'you're just jealous' or 'just because someone's happy' or 'you need to get laid' or whatever else. I think a little paranoia about now would improve our survival prospects considerably."

"Well, you are jealous, happiness of those around you drives you nuts, and frankly, yes, your disposition towards life in general would improve if you would only go out, get drunk, and score as much penis as you can attract," said Jane.

"Uh-huh. … … tell me you're at least going to consider that Tiffany might be here to re-appropriate the soul crystal?"

Jane looked thoughtful for a while.

At this point Stacy and Tiffany entered.

"Morning. I was just explaining to Tiffany about our security," said Stacy.

"Good idea Stacy. Don't forget to give her your pass codes, E-mail pass words, your PIN codes, your mail," replied Daria.

"Daria? What's wr-" started Stacy.

"Ask Jane," said Daria, "Tiffany, we need to talk, come on."

Tiffany followed Daria as she stormed out.

Stacy eventually asked "Jane?" and pointed after Daria.

"Daria thinks Tiffany's here to steal the soul crystal, remember the thing that made Brittany try to kill us?" asked Jane.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Tiffany," Daria eventually said, stopping suddenly, "what are you doing here? Really?"

"I'm on my holiday," said Tiffany looking perturbed, "what's gotten into you?"

"I don't believe you Tiffany. I think you're operational at this point and you're after something. Without knowing who you're working for, I can't entirely trust your bosses motivation, who do you work for?" asked Daria.

"I can't tell you that Daria," said Tiffany.

"Why not?"

"I can't say."

"What are your objectives?" asked Daria.

"To have fun and relax," said Tiffany.

"Right," said Daria. Having had enough of this, she tried entering Tiffany's mind to get the answers.

After a few seconds, she felt someone grab her.

Daria saw Tom standing in front of her. She looked around.

"Where's Tiffany?" asked Daria.

"Preparing for the blasting competition with Quinn," said Tom, "sorry, did I disturb you? You seemed to be in a trance or something."

"How did she do that?" asked Daria.

"What? How did who do what?" asked Tom.

"Forget it," said Daria as she walked off.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"And that's Tiffany done, only ten seconds slower than Quinn," said Charles.

Two identically constructed buildings, four stories, weird ass structural design (using Tom's strength and heat vision and Jane's magnetism and mischief) specifically to make imploding the building as difficult as possible, and part of the competition was to get the charges placed, tampered and fused as quickly as possible and anything that could be projected by the charges wrapped as quickly as possible.

If this were for real, of course, they'd take their time and be absolutely certain of everything, in fact, they'd test their explosives on a part before finally rigging their charges.

The next part was where they set everything off and collapse the building into as smaller heap as possible containing it as tightly as possible.

"Both contestants, I have control, arm your hell boxes."

Quinn and Tiffany checked their lever switches were all in the off position and placed their keys in the keyholes in their control boxes and turned them.

"Standby … Standby … FIRE!"

They both fired.

There was a flash where the det-chord took over from the electrical component of the fuse snaking into the buildings, around the inside of the buildings, and then three distinct bursts of explosions sounded as the buildings both folded in on themselves.

"We're now going to check the height of the piles and the perimeters to determine containment of the rubble within the footprint," said Charles.

They eventually determined "Quinn, the winner." Everyone who wasn't Daria cheered.

Jane and Stacy gave Daria an annoyed look, but Daria wouldn't have cheered even if she supported whoever won. It just wasn't how she reacted to anything.

"It was close though, Tiffany, you certainly gave Quinn a run for her money," said Charles.

Jane and Stacy approached Daria as everyone dispersed.

"You don't see a reason to be cautious, do you?" asked Daria.

"Daria, can't you see past your own fears?" asked Jane.

"Ho-kay, well, I got some studying to do for my hypersonic VTOL theory-" started Daria.

"Listen to me!" said Jane.

"Listen to me," replied Daria.

"No, you listen to me," said Jane.

"No, you listen to me," said Daria, mirroring Jane's heightened emotion.

"DARIA!"

"JANE!"

They both stopped.

"I got better things to do than flood my system with cortisol trying to get you to stop trying to give my personality a makeover long enough to consider the security risk I'm trying to bring to your attention, there's a million and twelve different ways I can say this, but I know from experience you'll dismiss all of them because YOU think getting me to exude cheer is of greater urgency. We'll pick this up when the soul crystal goes missing and we have to figure out who's got it and how we're going to get it back," said Daria as she left.

Jane and Stacy looked at each other.

"I'm sure this'll stop when Tiffany leaves," said Jane.

"I'd like this to stop now and for Daria and Tiffany to get past whatever's wrong between them," said Stacy, "Tiffany's still my friend, and I would actually like everyone to get on with each other, I just wish Daria would stop being so … … well … … that," said Stacy.

"That's Daria, when Tiffany leaves, Daria will realise what she did, and will try to make it right. It's not as quick as you or I would like, it's just the way it has to happen with her," said Jane.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Tiffany entered her room and started to think of a new way to try to locate the soul crystal.

That vault was real big, if she were to get inside, it would take up to an hour for her to locate it, and that would be done by running through all the boxes until something stopped her.

But she couldn't get in without setting off the alarms. Her job was to locate it, not to steal it, but she could be tasked with stealing it at a later time.

If she could check everywhere else it could be without setting off any alarms and didn't find it anywhere else, then it was in the vault.

Probably in the vault.

Damn it, there's got to be some …

"Bai. … … … Bai Zheng? You still around?"

Tiffany waited for a response.

"Okayyyyy, how do I contact him? … … … … … How do I normally contact him?"

Tiffany tried to remember.

"I was starving the first time and then … … Aww hell! … … … Well, only easy day was yesterday," Tiffany said as she got up and walked through her door.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Stacy entered the gymnasium, curious about the sound she was hearing. "Tiffany?"

"Hey Stacy," said Tiffany as she continued to run on the inclined treadmill.

Tiffany was seriously sweating and fatigued.

"Midnight training?" asked Stacy.

"Yeah, you?"

"I find things to chase, rats, squirrels, whatever else. … Something to do with my mutations, I guess."

"Found anything so far?" asked Tiffany.

"Only just woke up," said Stacy.

"Right."

Stacy eventually asked "Daria still giving you a hard time?"

"She thinks I'm after the soul crystal for some reason," said Tiffany.

"Wish I could say something that would make it better," said Stacy.

"It's okay, just Daria being Daria, and I can see where she might think that too, so really, I'm not bothered. Wish she weren't hostile towards me, but what you gonna do?"

"Kick her ass?" suggested Stacy.

"Tem- … not even tempting, no … It'll be fine, really," said Tiffany.

"Okay, well, don't overdo it, goodnight," said Stacy as she headed off.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Tiffany new it was time to quit when she stumbled from exhaustion and didn't reach out for the handrails until she was having her face buffed by the treadmill conveyer belt.

She lifted herself to her knees and pushed herself to her feet. After regaining her equilibrium, she walked around the treadmill and turned it off. Barely able to stand, she walked out of the gym and asked "You here Bai?"

"Yes … Have to say, you're one interesting girl."

"Thanks. I guess you know what I'm after."

"The soul crystal of Lou Cypher. Tiffany, I'm a little dubious about this, how come Armalin ain't involved?" asked Bai.

"Don't know," said Tiffany.

"Don't you think you should have asked?" asked Bai.

"Part and parcel of life in the navy, have to trust the higher-ups unless they present sufficient evidence that the orders they're giving are illegal that you have to refuse. That crystal does have national security implications, so being ordered to locate it for said higher-ups doesn't strike me as being the least bit strange. We have a few weeks in which to complete the mission, if you could check the vault and find out if it's there, and where in the vault it is, I can take that time to decide what to do with that information, but barring any signs of problems with the higher-ups, I'm going to have to pass it on as ordered."

"Okay, I'll find that crystal if it's there, but I also want to see what I can find out about your commanding officer and where his orders came from," said Bai.

"Thank you," said Tiffany.

"Now get some sleep, you look terrible."

"I'd like to know before I fall asleep actually," said Tiffany as she dragged herself back to her room.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Bai had found the crystal in the vault. It was near the back, on the left side, it was in a lead case, packed amongst 30kg of cobalt 60 ingots. Remove the lead case, pick the lock, you get a lethal dose of radiation, you'd walk five centimetres with the soul crystal and then fall over dead.

Bai had then headed off to the pentagon to try and work out where Tiffany's orders had come from.

It was difficult to see anything in a locked drawer, Bai had to feel for things, and like Tiffany, he couldn't quite phase through the soul crystal, so he would have to follow the next man up from Tiffany's CO, listen to all his conversations, hopefully he'd either confirm or deny that the admiral's orders did indeed come from a legitimate source.

So, all that left for her to do was kick back and catch up on everyone, have some fun.

…

…

'Farrington from Blum-Deckler, you there?'

'Blum-Deckler, Farrington, go ahead.'

'I've located the crystal, but before I reveal it's location, I would like to know our chain of command has not been infiltrated.'

'Excuse me? Are you suggesting our superiors have been compromised?' Thought Farrington, his tone of voice conveying a note of hatred.

'It's possible, I can think of at least one person who would be motivated to find a way in and exploit it to obtain the crystal, I signed up to serve the United States, not her enemies, I don't know how you might be able to do this, but I want to know we're not being duped.'

There was some silence.

Eventually Farrington thought 'You're not doing this just because you've been asked to spy on your Legion friends, are you?'

'No, I kept putting off doubts because I thought that might be it, then I talked to my ghost, he asked why Armalin wasn't involved in this, there may be a perfectly good reason for this, but that's led to the main question of where our orders came from?'

'Okay, I'll check it out for you, but if nothing's wrong, I expect you to carry out your orders.'

'Received Farrington, out.'

Insert Scene Separator Here

"He has no idea such an operation is in progress," replied the vice admiral.

"He ordered me in, so he knows I'm supposed to know, so if you're also supposed to know, but if it sounds like Tiffany and myself were on a bogus mission, then Tiffany will conceal the location of the crystal, or tell her friends to relocate it. I would like some assurance I'm not going to land in the faeces for doing the right thing, but if I can't confirm the origin of our orders, then-"

"Relax, tell Blum-Deckler to take no action pending further orders, I'll talk face to face with your admiral, find out what's going on … damn DELPHI, always got to make things difficult, you're dismissed," said the Admiral as he stood up and went for his coat.

"Aye sir," said Farrington as he snapped to attention and left.

Eventually the Admiral was outside talking to his personal assistant, and Fran left the phone, growing to the size of a cat to get to the door in good time before shrinking back down to aphid size to get under it.

She couldn't become visible until she was well clear, but she didn't want to run the whole way out at aphid size, so she ran for the Admiral's shoe, growing to mouse size until she was close enough grab his laces and then shrink to aphid size again as the vice admiral finished talking to his assistant and walked out to his car.

As soon as the admiral was at his car, Fran leapt off his shoe and grew to mouse size to get clear before the vice admiral moved off.

She looked around and grew to normal size, making her way to a nearby phone booth.

She then dialled a number and as soon as her current boss answered, she said "we're about to be compromised, Farrington showed up, three star told him to tell Tiffany to take no action until he has a face to face with their lone-star, but Tiffany now knows where the crystal is. What do you want to do?"

"Infil Legion Headquarters, hack their IT and comms, I need Tiffany and as few others as possible on a plane over flying the middle of Washington State, and I need the escape system to "Accidentally" function over the middle of the forest, I'll take it from there."

"Okay, on it boss," said Fran as she hung up and ran for the nearest taxi ramp.

Insert Scene Separator Here

The grenade Gatlin gun was a fun weapon to use.

6 40mm barrels rotated at 200RPM, producing 1200 rounds per minute, 1200 grenades per minute.

Daria pushed the trigger.

The 20Hz buzz hurt her ears.

But that was okay. It had her permission to do that.

"Don't you think you'll need your ears when you're operational?"

Daria looked at Tiffany as she stood next to her, wearing ear defenders and carrying her own grenade machinegun.

"They'll recover. Single barrel?"

"Twenty grenades a second, you'd be more mobile simply working in concert with a firebase or arranging for air support prior to infil. You don't get much in exchange for that weight penalty."

"Depends on weather you're offensive or defensive I guess," said Daria, "defensive, this'll delete entire companies way faster than a 6.54mm gatlin," said Daria.

"So will a smart mine package, and it'll be good against armour," said Tiffany.

"Enemy will just blow it up," said Daria.

"Your Gatlin grenade gun is even more visible," said Tiffany.

Daria eventually shrugged and said "These things are fun."

"Fair enough," said Tiffany as she set up her weapon on the firing line.

"Daria, Tiffany, need your help," said Jane as she entered the semi-enclosed structure covering the safe area of the range.

"What's up?" asked Daria, noting the straight intonation of Jane's voice.

"Da Feet," said Jane.

"Ughhhh," said Daria.

"What's … " started Tiffany.

"Da Feet, power to extend his feet into prehensile limbs, look, SWAT want to fill the bank vault with an anaesthetic, if we don't get there within twenty minutes, that's what they'll do, it's a HSBC in Everett, Washington state," said Jane.

"Okay, let's do it, Charles flying us?" asked Daria.

"No, he's off base, family time, don't think we want to interrupt that for this dork," said Jane.

"Right, I'll fire up a gridrunner Jane, you mind returning our weapons?"

"No problem," said Jane, as she magnetically lifted the weapons and their ammo boxes and ran off to the armoury as Daria and Tiffany ran for the hanger.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Okay, so you'll phase Jane through the bank vault, do what you have to to take control, I'll co-opt Da Feet if possible, or as many of the hostages as possible to divert his attention and support your attack," said Daria, "Like it?"

"Love it," said Jane.

"Where we going to park this thing?" asked Tiffany.

"Bank's on the corner of Rucker and 34th, police have cleared a car park on the corner of Wetmore and 32nd, approach from the north over the drive through, a police helo will be hovering directly over the car park," said Jane.

"Then we leg it, about a minute forty," said Daria, as she checked the map.

"Okay, starting our descent, we'll be entering Oregon in two minutes," said Daria as she reduced the throttles to idle and allowed the nose to dip slowly to minus ten degrees.

"Oregon? Our destination's in Washington," said Tiffany.

"I'm going to be bleeding off all this energy, I'll need to take us through a couple of high alpha turns, then I'll be lining up for my landing," said Daria.

"Okay," said Tiffany.

Eventually Daria said "Speed mach four, forty angels altitude, turning north," said Daria as she rolled right ninety degrees, and pulled back hard, subjecting them to about 8G.

"Does this centripetal force make me look fat?" asked Tiffany.

"It's making me feel fat," said Jane.

Daria eventually started to reduce the AOA as their inertia caught up with their attitude.

"Mach two point five, thirty angels," said Daria as she levelled the aircraft.

Suddenly there was a loud pop and the flight deck was subjected to 15G, it's attitude pointed outwards as it spun like a sycamore leaf on it's velocity vector.

"Daria?" asked Jane.

"Not me, our escape system's been initiated, brace yourselves for the next phase and try and stay close," said Daria.

It was about seven seconds before the system decided they were now slow enough for the upper half to come off, bolts were fired out of their slots in the lower half of the flight deck, allowing the upper half and the attached airframe to come off, and half a second after this, the seats fired.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Fran hung on to Tiffany as she and her attached seat fell.

The comms devices that had shrunk with her would not be effective over the distance required, so some point she was going to have to separate from Tiffany and open her own parachute.

At her current scale, however, she did have a much lower terminal velocity, so she would be slower than Tiffany would be with her parachute open.

The seat finally separated and Tiffany's parachute opened.

Fran let go of Tiffany and floated away, waiting about twenty seconds before she returned to normal size and opened her parachute.

She kept as straight as possible, trying to get over Tiffany, hoping she would remain out of everyone's field of view. Daria was on point, Jane and Tiffany formed in delta behind her, Daria was looking around for somewhere to land, she headed towards a trail, but there were no roads in view.

The longer Fran remained at normal size, the longer she would be broadcasting her location to her current bosses people.

Fran decided she needed to land out of sight of Daria, Jane and Tiffany, so she started rolling left and right to dump kinetic energy, eying a clearing near where Daria seemed to be aiming for.

She didn't seem to be slowing fast enough so she started going into some high alpha turns, and then levelled out again.

Better.

She lost sight of Daria, Tiffany and Jane as she dropped below the tree line, and aimed to land as close to the end of the clearing as possible without risking having to fish her parachute out of the trees, or worse: flying into one.

As if she could use being even more ugly.

Her feet hit the floor and she ran, pulling up on her parachute to enhance drag until she could come to a complete stop.

She moved to fold up her parachute and stuff it back into it's bag. She might need it later, but she would have to lay it out, fold it and pack it properly before she could use it again, or it would most likely tangle and defeat the purpose of her carrying it in the first place.

This done, she started running through the woods, hoping to catch sight of Tiffany again.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Nearest road's the five thirty Arlington Darrington road, point eight klicks north west or about one point five along this trail," said Daria.

"If we go along the trail, we'll be more visible," said Jane.

"Not sure we want to be visible," said Daria.

"Eh?" asked Jane.

"There was no warning light indicating heat building around the det chord, we check the sensors every time we check the rest of the cockpit, it weren't atmosphere getting in, because that will have set off both the gas filled sensors and the thermal couple sensors, and if anything was going to happen from a leak, it would have done so a hell of a lot sooner, we'd have been ejected over Ohio or Indiana," said Daria.

"What about the det chord itself, we ever change that out?" asked Jane.

"No need, we use RDX70 Vinyl, we do visual inspections of the chord, but changing it out would actually increase the risk of a fault developing," said Daria, "I think we were sabotaged."

"For what purpose?" asked Jane.

"To capture us, from what you're saying, they wanted us dead, they'd have gone for the controls and the engines and all sorts of other places," said Tiffany.

"Or to crash the Gridrunner into something and make us look like assholes," said Daria, "except unless we tell it otherwise, the residual avionics that don't come with us will locate an empty spot to set down in, we would need to select the aircraft as a weapon to make it ram something."

"That could also have been sabotaged," said Jane.

Daria sighed. "Let's get out of sight and find that road."

They moved towards the trees.

Eventually Jane said "I just tried to fly, I can't."

That got Daria and Tiffany's attention.

Tiffany tried to push a hand through a nearby tree. She couldn't. "Damn it."

"Ditto," said Daria, "guess that confirms it."

"How do we communicate without anyone hearing us?" asked Jane.

Tiffany signalled for them to form on her side and to advance, and walked off.

Daria and Jane did as Tiffany had signalled.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Fran was no longer able to change size, so that meant the superpower jammers were in effect.

But now she was having trouble following the three of them.

It had been fine in the clearing, but now in the woods, it was impossible to keep sight of them.

She eventually saw a clearing, but she couldn't see them in it.

She'd lost them.

It was too big for her to cross it and try to keep up with them, she just wasn't that fit.

Fran had failed.

She took a moment to throw up.

And then she selected her comm pack and turned it on.

"Brown Recluse from Wallfly … … I've lost them. … … over."

She felt tears flow down her cheeks as she waited for a response.

"Wallfly from Brown Recluse, where did you lose them, over?"

She checked her GPS co-ordinates and said "I'm at four eight point two six zero nine zero nine north, one two one point six four five six six eight west, I last saw them headed zero four five degrees, I'd say they're at least two hundred metres ahead of me, there's no way I'm going to be able to catch up to them, over." She wiped the tears from her face as she waited for a response.

"It's okay, I think we can get them, hold your position, and we'll pick you up when we're done, over," said her current co-worker.

"Thank you, out," replied Fran, suddenly relieved. She hadn't screwed up.

Well … She had, she had screwed up a bit, but it looked like the mission had not failed, the objectives were still open for success.

She relaxed, leaning against a tree, grinning like an idiot.

Until she felt a hand clamp over her mouth, the tip of a knife against the side of her throat, and two more pairs of hands on her own, pulling her arms back around the tree until they were united and bound by a cable tie.

The knife tip left her and reappeared on the other side of her neck as the three Legionnaires came into view, Tiffany holding the knife and her mouth, Daria and Jane looking at her webbing.

After a few seconds, Tiffany removed her hand from Fran's mouth, keeping the knife in place.

"Who are you?" asked Tiffany.

"My name's Fran - Fran Lawrence. Please don't kill me," said Fran, feeling panic sort of slowly set in. Her earlier fright was probably the reason she wasn't thrashing as hard against her restraints ash she felt she should be.

"Please answer our questions so I don't have to kill you then," said Tiffany, "who's Brown Recluse, Wallfly, and what do they want with us?"

"Brown Recluse is the leader of some mercenaries my boss hired to help with capturing you, and it's you, Tiffany, you know where the soul crystal is."

Jane looked shocked, Daria glared at Tiffany, and Tiffany, aware of the looks she was getting without looking back at them, said "okay, who's your boss?"

It was at this point that Daria noticed a puff of grey smoke, barely visible, on the opposite tree line, and she barely perceived the object coming at them before it blew open in front of them, coating the entire area around the four women in a heavy aerosol. "Oh, damnit," Tiffany growled; to the surprise of the other women, she stood up and held her arms so they hung limp, yet away from her body. "You've got about twenty seconds to get up and stand exactly the way I am," she continued. "Keep your mouths open - trust me, it's worse if you don't!"

"We know," Daria said, her face falling. Seconds later, the four women were unable to move as the confinement mist released into the air coalesced and they felt their bodies being covered in a clear, adhesive fluid with the consistency of syrup.

Feeling an enforced calm due to the sedatives within the mist's formula, the women barely perceived the arrival of four men and two women dressed in forest digicam under leaf net capes, tooled to the gills as they went about capturing the Legionnaires and freeing Fran.

"Ugh, man, you're the spy? No wonder you're having problems," commented the man freeing Fran.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Major General Armalin waited patiently as the second Gridrunner landed 200 metres from him. He'd been pulled from his post at the USAES temporarily for this.

The cops had been aghast when Armalin directed Charles to land on the impromptu airstrip, but really, there was no mystery after the ejection, the now lobotomised airplane had found somewhere to set down pending recovery. Gridrunners had three settings for their residual autopilots, first was to land at the first safe place it encounters, second was to land at a specific location, such as an airbase or the LZ, they run out of defensive or decoy ammo, the flight crew eject, and hopefully the enemy will assume they've done enough long enough for the fuselage to get away, and the third setting was programmed by the weapons management computer, you select kamikaze, point the reticule at whatever you want the airplane to fly into, and eject, turning the aircraft into a kinetic energy and incendiary (depending on how much fuel remains) weapon.

The flight path after the ejection wasn't that strange.

The thing that was strange was WHY THE HELL HAD DARIA EJECTED IN THE FIRST PLACE? Armalin had been drawn into this because he knew the Legion, and because brain dead airplanes flying around represented a potential threat to national security.

The engines on the second Gridrunner shut down and Charles, Brittany, Stacy, Tom, Quinn and Mack emerged.

"Any of you know what's going on here?" asked Armalin.

"Apparently there was an emergency call from Everatt Police Department regarding a superhuman threat, but when we contacted Everatt PD, they had no idea this call had taken place, seems our computer got hacked, and I mean physically hacked, someone got in and wired their gear directly to our computers, the Sandis are examining everything as we speak, one thing a Sandi mentioned was that there were a number of identical but different sized fingerprints, we think it's a superhuman with shrinking abilities, no apparent record on AFIS, so either first crime or never been caught," said Brittany.

"Motivation?" asked Armalin.

"Get some Legionnaires over here, no idea why, and Da Feet? That's more whoever can be assed territory than scramble all Legionnaires territory, they either wanted one of them specifically, or as many as they thought they could handle which would have been someone intangible, someone psychic, plus anyone with a weapon power such as telemagnetisim, tele-electricity, or, to be honest, anyone with moderate ass kicking abilities," said Brittany.

"Okay, the cops have located all the parts of the flight deck and the ejector seats, a specialist from Questcorp's headed out to help them examine it, the cops really hate you guys right now," said Armalin.

"Think they'll like us when we catch the saboteur?" asked Quinn.

"Good idea, got a plan?" asked Armalin.

"I'm going to try to identify where they might have landed, see if I can locate them, we'll stay in contact through our flight rings, Brittany, you hide everyone else, everyone stays close enough to assist if I shake anyone loose, like it?" asked Stacy.

"Love it," said Brittany.

They all took off.

Armalin pulled a satellite phone and started a call. As soon as someone answered, he said "Legion's in theatre, any activity?"

"No," replied the other guy.

"Superpower jamming fields?" asked Armalin.

"No."

That meant whoever had done this was probably long gone.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Daria involuntarily kicked the cage as she awoke.

"You awake then?" asked Jane.

Daria suddenly realised her hands were cuffed behind her in a set of rigid cuffs that no cop would use because they were too heavy. These cuffs were so wide that they held her forearms parallel, any effort to move her elbows apart threatened to break her wrists. She also felt like her head was spinning and like she wanted to puke.

Daria rolled onto her knees and lifted her head up, but she found the ceiling of the cage was 0.7 metres high.

Cage was 1.2m long and 0.6m wide.

Room was 4m by 6m, bare block walls, ceiling was 2.5 metres high.

A number of lengths of chain hung from the ceiling, stopping a metre off the floor, there were eight lengths in two rows of four.

"Yeah … this someone's idea of getting vengeance on behalf of the battery hens and veal calves I don't really give a damn about?" asked Daria.

"That's possible, as a secondary to finding the SOUL CRYSTAL TIFFANY! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU WENT AND DID THAT!" said Jane, turning to Tiffany's cage.

Daria became aware of a wet band on her neck, and realised there was a collar on it. "We all have compliance bands on?" asked Daria. That would explain the sick feeling she was feeling.

"I do, apparently you do, can't tell with Tiffany, she hasn't woken up yet."

"Okay, so who knows we have that thing? Think Black Majesty would use mercs?" asked Daria.

"For what? He could do this himself," said Jane.

"Okay, anyone else?" asked Daria.

"John Dynell?" asked Jane.

"He's got access to his own meta-humans," Said Daria.

"Yeah, Tiffany apparently knows where it is, can we trust her?" asked Jane.

"How should I know? For all I know she could be working for a rival gang who also want to use it for evil," asked Daria.

"She's not," said a barely audible voice.

Then a spec became visible between the three of them, this speck expanded into the full size of the woman, Fran Lawrence, they had encountered earlier, she was sat down.

"She's not what?" asked Daria.

"Not working for any gang. She's in the Navy. Had she not started asking awkward questions, you wouldn't have been brought here, we could have removed the crystal without having to hurt any of you. I'm sorry you have to go through all this. … Please just co-operate, tell him what he wants to know."

"Tell who?" asked Daria.

"I don't know if I'm allowed to tell you … I probably shouldn't have told you what Tiffany was doing … I'm sorry." Fran's voice remained apologetic throughout.

"You know, you keep saying you're sorry, but I'm not really feeling that you are sorry, so you have to ask yourself: … Are you sorry?" asked Daria.

Fran started to shrink again, but then the door opened, and two mercs and their apparent boss entered.

Fran returned to normal size and stood up.

"Surprised it's me?" asked the man standing before them.

"Well … … no … … who are you?" asked Daria.

"Come on, you can't not know who I am," said the man. He was about 1.5m tall, white, 5mm long brown hair, not particularly impressive, dressed in what looked like WWE wrestler spandex but built like someone who would last less than 200 microseconds in the ring.

"Well … Apparently I don't know who you are," said Daria. She closely examined the

"Aw come on, I played five different villains in Walker Texas Ranger, remember Bobby Lewis, got done for double parking? … Or, or, how about John Irma who was done for urinating in a public space in that alleyway behind the boozer? Then I portrayed a shoplifter In that episode where this kid was abducted from the mall," he said, apparently proud of his roles.

Daria shook her head saying "I'm sorry, I can barely remember some of the main characters of shows I do like, how am I supposed to remember a five time sub plot actor who's only been in five episodes of a really long running series?"

"They did it on purpose, after I spent all that time getting their food and mixing up materials for casting their props, and when they finally give me a chance, I'm so good, they get jealous and keep me from advancing."

The barely restrained smirk on the mercenaries faces told Daria and Jane everything they needed to know about this guy.

"Well … pretend we don't know you and introduce yourself will you?" asked Daria.

"I'm Wyatt Goldberg, and I got my powers about three years ago. I'm a mystic, and I want your soul crystal."

"Sorry, don't know where that is," said Daria

"Well then, who does?" asked Wyatt.

Daria remained silent.

"Okay, we'll do this the hard way," he said as he leaned down.

He opened the cage and grabbed Daria's collar by a hand grip she didn't notice was dangling from it.

He pulled her out and to her feet.

"Nice bracelet there," Daria said, having noticed when he was reaching in that he had a compliance band on. "Who put that on you?"

Wyatt scowled.

"Come on, you're a bad guy, you're supposed to rant and rave over this stuff," said Jane.

"If you must know, I put it on, apparently Xavier's taken an interest in me, he keeps sending three of his minions after me, one can teleport, one that can drain health and can mimic people's abilities, and a third one that shuts down all mutant abilities and electrical systems, had to get this thing to hide from them," said Wyatt.

"Oh yeah, Rogue, Dorian and Nightcrawler, good people them, and you have to wear a Mk. 40, that's actually quite funny," said Daria.

"Actually, it's a Mk. 50. I have to use four because you can only wear one of these for nine hours before it's irreparably screwed."

"Okay, well, that makes it sort of less funny," said Daria.

"Yeah, originally it's just rogue and Nightcrawler, but when I co-opted Rogue, he had to find Dorian. Now rogue stays well clear of me and goes after my minions instead while Nightcrawler keeps Dorian right next to me, hence my current entourage. Of course that means we're going to have to do things the old fashioned way, and instead of getting my answer in seconds without causing physical injury, I'll have to take hours taking you apart until you or someone here tells me where the soul crystal is, so I can send someone to go and get it."

After a few seconds of no one responding, he dragged Daria over to a chain that was dangling from the ceiling.

He then threaded the chain through a ring apparently in the back of the collar and pulled it through until the collar pulled up against Daria's trachea, forcing Daria to stand on her toes.

She then heard a click behind her head and Wyatt stepped in front of her, the tension in the chain remaining.

After watching her for a few seconds, Wyatt turned to Fran with the shrinking powers and said "Fran, you did well, I almost have the soul crystal," as he pulled a syringe and a box out of his pocket. He handed her an antiseptic wipe and then pulled an ampoule out of the box. The Ampoule held a light violet coloured liquid.

As Fran wiped a spot on her neck with the wipe, he uncapped the needle on the syringe and broke open the ampoule, he then loaded the syringe out of it and tapped the syringe to de-gas the contends before he expelled the air.

He then injected the liquid into Fran's neck.

It took seconds for the effect to become noticeable on Fran's disfigured face. She looked beautiful now.

He pit the cap back on the needle and removed it from the syringe, placing it and the empty ampoule in her hands saying "would you mind disposing of this?"

"Not at all, thanks," said Fran as she left.

He then put another needle, it's cap in place, on the syringe and put it back in his pocket.

"Sweet girl. Pity about the car crash. She used to work for this William Appleton guy, and he wanted to form an alliance with me, and when I said no, he made the mistake of assuming he was negotiating from a position of strength. … Silly man … Inherited her off of him, learned to synthesise the stuff he was giving her. Some point I might be able to make the effects permanent," said Wyatt.

"But not before she outlives her utility value, right?" asked Daria.

"Really Daria, that's not the way to motivate employees. I will make the effects permanent as soon as I have the ability, and I am also paying her for her work. Now, how do I motivate you and your friends to give me the soul crystal?"

"You'd need to prove that we can trust you not to misuse it. … good luck," said Daria.

Wyatt chuckled as he stepped around Daria.

He whispered something in a mercenary's ear, the mercenary nodded and left the room.

Daria felt her calves burn from the sustained force she was having to project, but she had to stay on her toes to allow blood to flow through her head.

"I know it was too much to hope, but I would like to make this easy on you, so please, tell me where that crystal is. I only want what is mine."

"Yeah? You also consider the world yours?" asked Daria as her calves shuddered, really burning now.

"The world is everyone's, why shouldn't I be included in that?"

The Mercenary returned, carrying a roll of black PVC tape and an electrically fused detonator.

"Ah, thank you," said Wyatt as he took the roll of tape off the mercenary and picked at the end of the tape with his fingernails. Eventually he managed to pick up the end of the tape and he unrolled about 100mm, borrowing the mercenary's knife to cut the tape. he gave back the roll of tape and took the detonator and stepped out of Daria's view.

Daria then felt him grab her left pinkie finger, pressing the back of the detonator against the back of the tip of her finger.

He secured the detonator with the strip of tape, and then turned back to the mercenary, and said "I need another 100mm of tape."

After the mercenary unrolled and cut the desired length of tape.

Daria then felt him secure the other end of the detonator against the knuckle of the finger. The detonator held her finger straight, and she didn't want to bend the detonator because she was kind of attached to her finger and didn't want to lose it.

"Now, why don't I give you half an hour to think about what you want me to do when I get back, do you want me to remove the detonator or set it off? Excuse me," he said as he left. The Mercenaries left with him.

Daria shifted her weight to try to keep her calves from cramping up.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Their scent ends here," said Stacy, "I smell diesel exhaust, but there's no tracks to indicate a wheeled or tracked vehicle, trying hard to imagine someone trying to use a hovercraft here, grass has been blown outwards, I think they used a helicopter."

"Fuelled on diesel?" asked Brittany.

"Get the revs up, you get over the weight penalty easy," said Ruttheimer, "remember those engines that had the variable orifice injectors? Means aircraft can now be equipped with diesel engines."

"What about the fact NORAD didn't see anything?" asked Quinn.

"Stealth ain't as hard as you think, a bit of sense can make anything radar invisible," said Charles.

"I think the helo remained at treetop level, that'll help me follow it," said Stacy as she advanced off west.

"Okay, let's see where it takes us," said Brittany.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Jane? You making any progress?" asked Daria.

"No. You?"

"Err … … No."

Daria then looked at Tiffany, still asleep.

"TIFFANY! … TIFFANY!"

Tiffany didn't even move.

"Heavy sleeper, isn't she?" Commented Daria.

"No idea … She isn't allergic to confinement mist is she?" asked Jane.

"No idea, could just as easily be the compliance band though … … HEY, FRAN! … … I KNOW YOU'RE IN HERE! … … GROW UP AND STOP PLAYING YOUR SPY GAMES WILL YOU?"

The door opened and Fran entered, full size, saying "I was outside actually. He will set that detonator off if you don't co-operate."

"And if we co-operate, he gets his hands on the soul crystal, and him getting that soul crystal equals a very bad thing, do you see my dilemma?" asked Daria.

"He's not a bad guy, he just wants to be powerful," said Fran.

"Our intention is to secure it so no one can use it, we can't release it to anyone, not ever, we lose control of it, the world could end, it gets in to anyone … you ever watch any Stargate?" asked Daria.

"Yeah, you're saying it's like a goa'uld?" asked Fran.

"Yeah. Specifically, Ba'al," said Daria.

"Right," said the Fran. After a few seconds she said "I don't think my boss wants to lose control of it either, I mean, you don't know him like I do."

"Yeah, he pays you money and beauty serum, whereas he threatens and tortures me and my friends, I can definitely see why he would grow on you," said Daria.

"You know what he can do, why do you resist?" asked Fran.

"Because I know what he can do," said Daria, "it's precisely because he scares me that I can't give him the crystal."

"He'll take your finger off, and I don't think he'll stop there," said Fran, on the verge of crying.

"That case, I'll just have to get out of here or get rescued somehow," said Daria.

"But there's no way your friends will find this place, we're buried under the forest, it won't show up on any satellite scans because the only surface disturbance occurred at the entrance."

"How did he build this thing?" asked Jane.

"He froze … … I shouldn't be telling you any of this," said Fran.

"I won't say anything," asked Daria.

"Yeah, go on, you can trust us," said Jane.

"No, I really can't, I probably shouldn't have told you as much as I did," said Fran.

She then left the room.

Daria sighed inwardly and then asked "How long's Tiffany been asleep now?"

"Bit too long really," said Jane.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"They must have climbed out here, the scent just ends," said Stacy.

"So now what?" asked Brittany.

"Absence of anything else, I'd say we need to look for any signs of unusual activity," said Charles.

"Unusual activity, what, like star trek costumed gridiron matches? How do we determine what unusual activity to look for?" asked Quinn.

"There were a lot of scents, whoever took our people has to be based somewhere, and a large group of people just standing around like spare dicks has to be noticeable somehow," said Stacy.

"We know they used confinement mist, Xavier says no apparent mutant activity he could register, and he'd definitely have noticed someone using telepathy," said Quinn.

"Hydra maybe?" asked Brittany.

"X23 deleted them ages ago," said Charles.

"We don't even know what they were after specifically," said Quinn, "all we know, they just wanted to sell our people to someone."

"What about what Daria said she thought Tiffany was after?" asked Stacy.

"The soul crystal?" asked Quinn.

"Okay, back to what we can establish, these guys are based somewhere close by or they would have drawn our people somewhere else," said Charles, "they also want to house how many people?"

"I detected fifteen," said Stacy, "so that's food, water, shelter, let's get back to the Gridrunner, get on the computer, see what we can find using thermal imaging."

Insert Scene Separator Here

"I have spent most of my time searching for this Wyatt Goldberg individual, but he's remained invisible to me, I think he is wearing a Mk 50 band," said Xavier.

"If he's involved, I hope it's a Mk 40, that would make it funny. Are there any mutants you can sense in Washington State?" asked Armalin over the phone.

"I can only sense Micheal Mackenzie and fourteen other mutants at the moment, the rest are the wrong kind of mutants," said Xavier.

"Aside from you and your Legionnaires, we have fourteen, same as Xavier, but there's no way to determine if any of them are involved in anything," said Agent Lance Alvers, Armalin's SHIELD contact, they were on a party line.

"Okay … Any of them could surface at any time, meanwhile, Xavier, I'd like to send one of my men over to you so that as soon as you have their location we can get an idea of their situation, would you have a problem with this?" asked Armalin.

"I don't think so, who are you sending?"

Insert Scene Separator Here

"No massive food purchases have been recorded, how the hell do they hide that?" asked Stacy as she looked through the information they had gathered from every supermarket in Washington State.

"Make a series of small purchases and have the buyer place each purchase in the back of the truck?" suggested Brittany.

"What about power? Any power lines going off to the middle of nowhere?" asked Quinn.

"They could just use generators," said Brittany.

"How much power would then need?" asked Stacy.

"You can get wind up TVs now, so not much," said Charles.

"How about preserving perishable foods?" asked Quinn, "that's got to eat some amount of power."

"Yeah, that would depend on what they decide to eat," said Charles.

"If they want to eat healthy, then they absolutely have to have refrigeration and freezing capability, some foods you just can't can," said Quinn.

"What kind of heat signature would we be talking?" asked Stacy.

"Seven hundred watt per fridge, it'd be a stretch to say they'd be far enough from the nearest town that they'd need to freeze anything," said Charles, "I suppose it depends on how much they're willing to spend on fuel getting the food to their base, let's see, at least fifteen people, combined food per day would be about nineteen point six kilojoules, 3.6kg carbohydrates, 0.815kg Protein, 0.836kg fat, you know what, most the stuff needed can be canned, in fact, if they use vitamin pills, they can skip raw fruit and veg all together, Damn it!"

"What else do they need?" asked Quinn.

"Well, they still need wat- … … They'd have to drink two point five litres per person, and that's just sitting around doing nothing, but you have to pasteurise it, you do that by boiling it, so fifteen people makes thirty seven point five litres, you want to boil that to be extra sure, forty two hundred Joule per kilogram kelvin times thirty seven point five times about ninety five Celsius, fifteen megajoules a day, that's one hundred and seventy three watts over the whole day," said Charles.

"Well … they're going to wait all day for their water?" asked Quinn.

"Good point. Aside from that, it's more efficient to heat it quickly, so it'll be as fast as they can, they could use kettles or hot water urns … … You know what? This is getting us nowhere, what are we missing here? Why set up here at all? We got forests, mountains, some volcanoes … … You know what, you want to hide a large structure in the middle of nowhere indefinitely, make sure no one can stumble across it, Aww, they have a permanent installation, I can think of a LOT of ways you can build something without the CIA having so much as a clue, you'd need to stabilise the ground, that can be done with grout injection or by injecting cryogenic fluids to freeze it, precast segments will draw attention, but you can build a shotcrete pump yourself, you can make rebar grids yourself if you're okay with doubling up to overcome the use of steel cable not designed for it, but you know what will really narrow this down?"

Charles waited a full thirty seconds waiting for someone to ask "What?"

He then just said "Energy, they want a long term facility that'll remain undetected indefinitely, they need energy, we find out if there's been a spike in the amount of concrete being procured near a volcano, they'll also want pipes, wires, it'll be a major construction project, but it won't have gone through the planning office."

Insert Scene Separator Here

Wyatt entered. At this point, Daria was in a state where she somehow was unconcerned about what he was about to do. She was aware that that could easily change once he blows her finger off. She remembered how her resolve had dissolved within seconds of him entering her mind.

"So, where's my crystal?" he asked.

"I can't tell you," said Daria. She wondered how long it would be before she would tell him who could tell him.

"Is tat your final answer?"

"Yes."

"Oh dear," he said as he put on his goggles and accepted the hellbox off of one of his mercenaries.

"Don't do this," said Jane.

Daria felt tension on the detonator's wire as he removed the tape from the bundle of wire so he could unfold the wire and initiate the detonator from a distance.

After he wired it up, he stepped in front of Daria and said "If you guys could join me over here please? I'm sure you absorb enough shrapnel from live combat."

They did as instructed.

Daria started to turn her back towards them, but Wyatt grabbed the front of her trousers and pulled her forwards, forcing her to face them if she didn't want her throat crushed by the collar.

"Okay, fire in the hole," he said before he pushed the button.

"NO!" shouted Jane.

She felt a stinging sensation in her ears and she felt three finger bones slap her other hand.

She then felt a cold sensation in her left ring finger and she couldn't feel her left pinkie.

He let go of her trousers and said "I'm sure the pain will be along in a minute." He then walked around her and inspected the damage. "Hmm. … Might lose a bit too much blood if we don't do something." He then unlocked the padlock holding the chain to her collar and lifted her hands.

Daria realised there must be a ring attached to the base of the cuffs as the chain wasn't threaded between her wrists, and the momentary relief to her legs ended as her hands were pulled up as high as they would go. The sudden movement awakening her leg muscles hurt like hell, as did the pressure on her wrists as her bodyweight pulled her elbows apart.

Wyatt looked at her current posture and said "Maybe we should have started with caning her ass. … Ah well, maybe we'll do that with Jane or Tiffany if it comes to that. We'll be back later, we have hundreds of detonators, so we can do your fingers, your toes, we can slowly carve you up to nothing."

He then walked to Tiffany's cage. There was a load of saliva pooling under her face. He kicked the cage. No response. "She should be awake by now shouldn't she?"

"The dose a person receives from confinement mist can vary depending on body mass, lung capacity, exposed skin area, give her another hour before we start getting worried," said one of the mercenaries.

"Okay." He then went for the door saying "I'll be back, I'll bring another detonator, then I'll be back again to use it if you're still not ready to talk."

Then they were alone again.

A few minutes later, the sensation started to return to the knuckle that no longer had a finger attached. She could also feel the muscles in her arm cramping because the tendons no longer had anything keeping the muscles from simply bunching up. She felt the damage to her ring finger join in where the overpressure had peeled back some of the skin.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Okay, we've seen a large amount of hundred kilo bags of cement, hundred kilo bags of sand, hundred kilo bags of aggregate, seven megapascal block, six mil steel cable, and, well, miles of two point five twin and earth, from stores within Carbonado and Eatonville.

"Same with cast iron pipes, nothing for drilling equipment, but something that specialised, they'll probably go as far as possible for it to evade detection.

"The purchases didn't coincide with any known construction projects, and it all happened too quickly for the normal pattern of DIY builds, so I think we have our bad guys." said Charles.

"Nearest volcano's mount rainier," said Stacy, looking at the map.

"Okay, let's check it out," said Brittany, "Stacy, see if you can smell that diesel signature again, maybe some of those bad guys."

"Okay," said Stacy as she flew off.

"Probably want to tell Armalin," said Quinn.

Insert Scene Separator Here

The pain in her hand was really starting to bug her now. The way the nervous system handles serious injury is to numb it until the creature it's in has either neutralised the threat or legged it, THEN it hurts to stop the creature from exacerbating the injury.

Only problem is that for creatures such as homo-sapiens or meta-homo-sapiens was that the pain was generally useless, sometimes it can usefully indicate that an injury has occurred and needs addressing, but these levels where useless to Daria and useful to the enemy.

Jane wanted to ask Daria if she was okay or say something of comfort, but knowing Daria, Jane was afraid to. 'How are you feeling?' 'MY FINGER'S GONE, HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL?' 'Erm … ' and things go steadily downhill from there.

Daria was doing all she could to hold back any expression of pain, about the most she was allowing herself was some movement and heavier breathing. There was no external indication as to how she was holding out from telling them that only Jane and Stacy were supposed to know, they obviously knew Tiffany knew where the soul crystal was located, but Tiffany was still unconscious.

A mercenary entered the room and walked over to Tiffany.

"Still asleep there?" he asked.

He then grabbed the cage and started shaking it hard.

He then left the room and returned with another mercenary and they opened Tiffany's cage.

"You know she could be faking, right?" asked one as they reached around Tiffany's knees and pulled her out.

They then rolled her on her back and one of them shook her head by her jaw.

One of them got a mischievous look on his face and said "I know what'll wake her up."

He then slid his hand down her trousers.

His friend chuckled and said "If you don't tell us otherwise, we'll assume you want our babies."

"DON'T YOU DARE!" shouted Jane.

"Or what, you'll shout at us to death?" said the guy who was feeling Tiffany. He chuckled as Jane tried to force herself up against the roof of her cage.

He then looked down at Tiffany and said "She should be awake now, or at least twitching."

The other guy opened her mouth and put his ear over it. "There's saliva pooling in her trachea, I don't think she can fake that, get her in the recovery position, I'll get help."

He wasn't stupid, he still had a sneaking suspicion that Tiffany was faking it, so when he rolled her onto her side rather than release her hands to support her head, he held her head.

That was still insufficient. Tiffany bent forwards, rolled onto her back and kicked him in the side of the head. With him punch drunk from the first kick, Tiffany got on her feet and kicked him in the throat, flipping him onto his back. Her next move was to stamp foot onto the bridge of his nose with sufficient force to cave his cranium in. She then took his knife and moved to his neck.

"TIFFANY!" shouted Jane.

Tiffany looked up.

"He's down, you don't need to kill him."

"What? … Are you willing to bet your life on that Jane?" asked Tiffany. The guy was probably dead anyway, this was just to make sure. Aside from that, unknown hours wearing a Mk. 40 screwing with her nervous system, she really wanted to kill someone.

"Tiffany, just don't, okay? Grab his keys," said Jane.

Tiffany eventually dropped his knife and checked his pockets and located a bunch of keys.

She then opened Jane's cage and Jane rapidly shuffled out. Tiffany tried each key until one fit and freed Jane's hands.

Jane then moved to free Tiffany and then Daria. With everyone's hands free, Tiffany took the mercenary's gun, which turned out to be a PFT-M2, and retrieved his knife from the floor. She also located a small first aid kit and handed it to Daria. "We don't have time at the moment, but as soon as we have a minute, I want to get that wound sterilised and dressed. We don't have time to debate any of this, we're not cops busting a couple of vandals for tagging, we're in extreme danger, we're well out numbered, we pick up any grenades along the way, and we need to clear a large formation out of the way-"

"NO!" interrupted Jane.

"YES!" replied Tiffany.

"BOTH OF YOU KNOCK IT OFF! YOU'RE DOING MY HEAD IN! Tiffany do what you have to, Jane and I will do what we have to," said Daria. Daria had checked the damage to her hand: As expected, her pinkie finger was gone, and the skin on her ring finger was slightly torn, but the wound had clotted, and while she didn't want to move her ring finger, she figured she could still fight if she had to.

About ten seconds after they were all free, they heard boots approaching.

Tiffany stood ready at the door, but a loud bang suddenly sounded.

"What was that?" asked Jane.

Tiffany took the handle of the door and opened it, looking ahead. Seeing no threats, but a lot of smoke, she then opened to the rest of the way and saw three mercenaries on the floor, one of them had his leg badly chewed up. There was a patch of soot on the floor and a shallow crater indicating an explosive device the size of a grenade about a metre from the door, and there were pits in the wall in a pattern consistent with a fragmentation grenade.

Tiffany signalled the other legionnaires to follow her. As soon as they were out, Daria and Jane grabbed their guns, also PFT-M2s.

They then heard people running and four mercenaries appeared from the direction Daria and Jane were facing, guns drawn. Daria and Jane knocked them out as they emerged, these guys were clearly not expecting guests this deep in their stronghold.

"Check for keys too, we can get out of these collars, we'll be better able to fight."

Daria and Jane quickly checked the bodies.

"No joy," said Daria.

"Ditto, did we miss anywhere?" asked Jane.

"We could cavity search them and find an MRI or something, but us being in the middle of an enemy stronghold, I vote we move on," said Daria.

"Agreed, my direction let's MOVE!" said Tiffany, causing Daria and Jane to wince.

They followed Tiffany, covering their rear.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Mt. Rainier … … Yes, I have one mutant, she is located underground," said Xavier.

"The Legion were headed there anyway," said Armalin over the phone.

"We'd better join them," said Wolverine.

"Okay, gather around people, I'll get us within half a klick," said their guest as Wolverine, Dorean, Rogue, Nightcrawler, Shadowcat, Scott, Jean and Hank gathered around him.

Insert Scene Separator Here

A series of explosions happened around the corner.

Tiffany approached the corner and glanced around. Three doors were blown in, and Tiffany could see a fourth with a claymore mine taped to it. To the outside with the shrapnel facing the door.

She saw the doorknob move down, and ducked back, and another explosion sounded.

"What's going on?" asked Daria.

"Someone's helping us. We're going to pass some doors that got blown in. TELL me Armalin covered house-clearing," said Tiffany.

"He did," said Daria.

"Including the part about people who appear dead or unconscious?" asked Tiffany.

"Yesssssssss," Daria and Jane chorused.

"Okay then. MOVE!" said Tiffany.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"How the hell did you accidentally hit play instead of record?" asked Wyatt.

The embarrassed mercenary said "I don't know, or it wouldn't have been an accident."

This pissed Harman Roberts, call sign Brown Recluse Zero One, off. Most the day he'd been in conflict with Wyatt over their interrogation strategy, they had been keeping the prisoners together, his justification was if they see what'll happen to themselves later and that their empathy towards each other will add to their duress. Guy had probably never read a horror novel in his entire life, fact is, snippets of other prisoners distress would do far more than seeing it happen.

Giving the prisoners time to dwel on the consequences of resistance is all well and good to the uninitiated, but that time only ends up building resolve, you give them time to adapt or collect their thoughts, he was leaving them too long between blows. Simulated chaos in the administration of the duress such as apparent rage combined with something that could accidentally kill or permanently injure or disable motivates the person to try to regain control before they are killed or rendered unable to escape when freed. The only means available being to give the interrogator something they want, Reinforce that and eventually the prisoner runs out of things other than the information they're after, and another reason to separate the prisoners is so they feel less shame when they do co-operate. They remain in sight and sound of each other, their sense of shame will reinforce their determination to withhold the information.

The stress positions, strapedo and hanging on tiptoes were a good move, and the compliance bands would further harass their senses, but he failed to mix in other things, he just wasn't keeping up the fear.

It also didn't help that the rooms were so unfinished. They should have plastered and painted the walls, tiled the floors, quadrupled the light levels, the collars would be making the prisoners photosensitive, pipe in a high pitched tone to harass their ears (not much point in using white noise, just use something constant and irritating again to break their concentration), remove distractions, smell of cleaning fluids and disinfectants, make them look somewhat obsessive, right now it looked like a half finished building site.

Harman had been in the Rangers, as had three of his team, another four were former Green Berets. The rest were former gang members they had managed to tempt away with the money a mercenary can make, and the Green Berets took a special pride in being 'Force Multipliers'. Their ability to train up indigenous groups being one of the main points of their existence, and the former gangsters were now as capable as any other member of their group. Harman thought the Rangers would take him places and let him fight. Apparently not, he could count the number of actual operations he had been on throughout the decade of his career on one hand, and he found himself going crazy to the point of developing a bad discipline record, so he quit before he did something to get fired and set up his own rent-a-squaddie business.

To be fair, Wyatt knew how to build and wire this place, and was fairly good at tactics and strategy, basically keeping their overall profile to near invisibility, he never picked a fight they couldn't win, and that stealth Helo was just mint, but he was a bit slow when it came to the psychology of war, and didn't want to admit it.

Still, Fran had bugged the Legionnaires facilities so thoroughly that they had a shot at following the crystal if it was ever moved.

That's another point, they could have used Fran as a friend, according to the debrief, Fran would have been fairly plausible, and she could have been used as a 'Good cop', let the prisoners try to recruit her and gather information off of her, she could be used to manipulate the prisoners. Fran, underneath her usually calm exterior, felt empathy. Empathy with your co-workers improves unit cohesion, but empathy with enemy operatives was a problem, it was obvious Fran was not a villain at heart, it was just the only job she could get. Push her too hard and she might grow a spine and react. Like Jonathon Levinson off of Buffy The Vampire Slayer after Warren Meers killed his ex-girlfriend and was trying to kill Buffy.

Wyatt didn't want to hear about the possibility of Fran defecting, apparently, she's "Too scared of me to defy me."

She's actually too scared of being abandoned with no support, and that card has a limit. It just felt like they were playing out an episode of Orange County Chopper, only with Paul Teutul Sr. not knowing his ass from his elbow.

Like, for instance, just as a vague example, that stunt with the detonators was likely to turn Fran against them, seeing prisoners being disfigured would probably be a bit close to home for her.

Wyatt hit stop and they saw blue with a message saying "No Signal."

He hit more stop button and screen after screen showed the same message.

The mercenary grabbed his comm and said "All call signs, we're under attack, surveillance is down, we may have an invisible or intangible intruder, and can someone check on the prisoners please? Over."

He waited for a reply.

He then picked up another comm unit and turned it on, he placed them next to each other and heard no feedback.

He then used the fresh unit, asking "Any call sign, comm check, over?" After receiving no reply, he pulled his gun and grabbed another, handing it to Wyatt.

He then opened the door looking ahead of him, seeing no one, he popped out the door looking the other way.

Wyatt jumped out behind him.

The mercenary then advanced along the corridor to the room they were keeping their prisoners in, the second corner he rounded he saw four unconscious people at a junction. He ran up to them and saw three more dead people near the door to the room they were storing their prisoners in.

He picked up a comm off of one of the dead mercenaries and quietly asked "Any call sign, this is Brown Recluse zero one, please respond, over?"

"Zero One this is Zero Five, I've been trying to contact you for ten minutes, where have you been?" responded another Mercenary.

"In a world of our own apparently, give me a sitrep, over?"

"We heard some explosions, we think we're under attack, but we don't know where from, Zero Three's got ten men at the front door, I have another twelve with me in the cafeteria, area front door and cafeteria is secure, over."

As he advanced to the prisoner closet, he said "zero five, do not assume anywhere is secure, someone sabotaged everything in the security office with me sitting there the whole time," he then arrived at the door and looked in and said "The prisoners have escaped, I see handcuffs but no collars, I have no way to know if they have removed them, over."

"Daria's a psychic, if the collars were off, all your men would have cuffed themselves to every available fixture," said Wyatt.

"That raises another point, the Legion don't kill, it's a big thing for them, someone else is throwing grenades. If the Legion has found us, it's likely Delphi, Shield and the Xavier institute would have also found us and we'd have a massive fire fight on our hands, instead we 'think' we're under attack … Boss, you know that thing you never wanted to hear me say again?"

Wyatt frowned as he considered it.

"If she has, then I will have to kill her. … I'm going to have to use my powers, and then we're going to have to run like hell, I'll locate them and knock them out," he said as he started undoing his Mk 50.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Tiffany, Jane and Daria approached the door, Tiffany waved them back against the opposite wall as she backed against the wall on her side.

She pushed the doorknob down and pushed the door slowly forward.

As soon as she got a look at the line of Mercenaries in what looked like some kind of eatery, she pulled herself back against the wall in time to avoid absorbing any of the bullets that were coming through the door.

"Okay, I think we're in trouble," said Tiffany, "we try to withdraw, we lose the protection of the walls around the door."

"How many?" asked Daria.

"Too many," said Tiffany.

"Sounds like more then we can handle then," said Jane.

"Fits the definition," said Daria.

Tiffany glanced through a bullet hole and saw Fran looking around one of the door jambs behind the mercenaries.

Fran leaned forth, holding something small, green and cuboid with a little strap hanging between the ends.

Fran tossed it at one of the mercenaries and ducked back.

He looked down at it, confused. Tiffany pulled her head back, plugging her ears, mouthing 'fire in the hole', Daria and Jane also got her fingers in their ears. The shrunken satchel charge had the same energy as it had when at full sized.

"LET'S GO!" said Tiffany as she advanced and started shooting any mercenary still moving and shooting any that appeared dead, hopefully knocking out any that were still alive.

She then picked up a minimi one of the mercenaries was using and slung it over her shoulder, she also grabbed some grenades, hooking the levers over her trouser waistband.

"Tiffany," started Jane.

"Forget it," said Daria as she grabbed a type 86 AK off one of the inanimate mercenaries and pulling as many clips as she could find. "Use it to scare or immobilise them if you have to, there's plenty of ways to shoot someone without killing them."

Jane sighed and did the same as Daria, slinging the type 86 AKs and pocketing as many of their clips as she could find.

"Thanks Fran, any more ahead of us?" asked Tiffany.

"Yes, I heard them talking over their comm system, there's ten more at the main entrance."

"Okay, let's go," said Tiffany.

About this time purple puffs of smoke erupted from the sides of their collars.

The three girls looked confused.

"I stuffed the locks with nitrogen tri-iodide paste, I was hoping that would open them, but the latch seemed too secure. I think they're magnetic," said Fran.

"Thanks for trying," said Tiffany.

"I'm sorry I waited as long as I did before realising what kind of people I was working for," said the girl, "I'll get some ice and cut some of their fingers off before we leave, one of them might be a good enough tissue match for a transplant."

Daria looked a little dubious and said "we need to escape now, and we have regenerators now, so … … I appreciate the offer."

"Wallfly, grab a gun and some ammo and form on me," said Tiffany.

"Just hope we don't end up shooting each other if we get bumped in the forest," said Jane.

Fran did as Tiffany said and Jane joined Tiffany on point, the girl formed next to Daria and they headed out.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Tastes like araldite," said the mercenary as he tasted the shavings he scraped off the buckle on the Mk 50.

"She gets in, mixes a glob of araldite, and leaves, and the glob of araldite returns to it's normal volume," said Wyatt, "and the strap's composed of omnium steel fibres."

"What do you want to do boss?" asked the mercenary.

"I want to get this off of me," he said.

The mercenary looked at his hand. He then asked "How badly do you want that off?"

Wyatt realised the tone the mercenary was using, and then shuddered.

"You have healing powers, right?"

"Yeah," said Wyatt, still looking pale.

"If I remove your thumb, that'll slide right off."

Wyatt considered this and eventually he just nodded.

Insert Scene Separator Here

The four girls approached a door but stopped and hugged the walls when the door disintegrated as two groups of three blades sliced through it and a mean looking man in a costume poked his head through.

"Come on," he said, waving them through.

They opened the door and met with a blue guy with a prehensile tail, a large blue guy without a prehensile tail, a girl with white steaks at the front of her brown hair with ashen skin, a tall girl with red hair, a tall guy with red tinted goggles, a small girl with long brown hair, and "Hi Betty," said Tiffany.

"Tiffany," acknowledged Betty, "Let's get you guys out of here."

"FRAN LAWRENCE, I AM SEVERELY DISSAPOINTED IN YOU!" shouted a loud booming voice in their heads.

"Bugger," said Betty.

He then looked distracted for a second and said "Xavier, please locate him … Right," he then addressed the others and said "excuse me a minute," before he teleported out.

He then teleported back and said "Okay, now let's go."

Insert Scene Separator Here

"And our main story, a blast estimated to be of two hundred megatons in yield occurred at forty one degrees north, one five three degrees west in the northern pacific ocean, no government has taken responsibility for the blast, and several terrorist organisations have claimed responsibility for it, however, a CIA representative accidentally let slip that the Russians had deleted records of one of their boomers within minutes of the blast, indicating that a Russian submarine may have accidentally detonated all it's nuclear warheads and possibly it's reactor too."

The news reader continued on as the Legionnaires and the X-men watched the TV in the Xavier institute. The exceptions were Daria, Fran and Jean who were downstairs.

"Think that killed him?" asked Tiffany.

"It better have, if it hasn't, he is going to be well pissed," said Betty. He had basically teleported himself and Wyatt out to the middle of the pacific ocean and shoved an explosive energy ball up his ass before beaming out. He had given Wyatt no time to react. "Given what you three said about him, guy was a total bollock, I think I got him."

"Here's hoping," said Jane.

"I'm glad I didn't have to touch him again, every time I absorb his personality, the professor has to go in and undo the damage," said Rogue.

"Thing is," said Tiffany, "I should have handled this way better, I mean, I had a feeling there was something wrong right at the start, and I didn't act on it until I talked with my ghost. And even then I should have been alert to the possibility that whoever was orchestrating this had some means to follow me."

"Based on what?" asked Quinn.

"Well … I don't know, I keep maintaining that I'm not an idiot, and first chance to prove it, I go and get a bunch of us captured," said Tiffany.

"Your chain of command got subverted, not your fault," said Betty, "sometimes you get stupid orders without the chain of command being subverted, unless they constitute actual war crimes, you gotta follow them."

"I'm not the one who got a finger blown off because of my own stupidity," said Tiffany.

"Sometimes the enemy's just plain better," said Daria as she entered the room, "I've screwed up spectacularly myself, I should have been on the lookout for something like this, at the very least I should have remembered you had a ghost who happens to be so undetectable he could get you your answers in about five minutes."

"How's the new finger?" asked Jane.

"Have to go easy on it for a while, but otherwise, fine."

"Cool," said Jane.

"That was some quality acting you did there Tiffany, how the hell did you learn to do that?" asked Daria.

"Well, 'You Know Where', teaches mind control resistance techniques, and mental relaxation in case I ever need to fake death or unconsciousness. It's harder to do when someone's kicking the faeces out of you of course, but these guys gave me the opportunity to prepare my mind for the task ahead," said Tiffany.

"That was a good thing, I don't think the tri-iodide Fran stuck in the locks would have been enough, even with the mechanical locks," said Daria.

"You trust Fran do you?" asked Rogue.

"Well … for the moment," said Daria.

"Daria, Fran manipulated you guys for this Wyatt guy," said Rogue.

"And she turned on him at considerable risk to her own wellbeing," said Daria, "and I'm supposed to be the paranoid one, what's driving this Rogue?"

"Mystique," said Nightcrawler.

Rogue glared at Nightcrawler for a second and then looked away.

"Mystique's been the one that's persistently manipulated Rogue as so many people that it's a sore issue-"

"JUST 'COS MISTIQUE'S YOUR MOTHER, KURT!" responded Rogue.

'Knock it off,' thoughtcast Xavier.

Rogue and Nightcrawler stopped arguing.

"Jane," said Daria, "That soul crystal must become totally inaccessible to anyone, if we can access it, so can someone else. Apparently Wyatt became aware of it because one of Black Majesty's minions doesn't know how to keep his mouth shut."

"You're not in charge here," said Quinn.

"Appreciated, but that thing's a magnet for Black Majesty league bad guys, and for all we know Wyatt could resurface again, it's got to go, do you concur?"

Quinn thought about it and said "Yes, I do."

"Good, I have a few suggestions I can make, I suggest everyone think up possible disposal methods and we get together and decide which one to implement, top two would be a subduction zone and a black hole."

"Tiffany, Stacy, Brittany, I need a word with you," said Jane.

Jane walked off with the three selected girls in tow.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Have you killed?" asked Jane.

"Can't discuss it," said Tiffany.

"State Secret or the fifth?"

"State Secret," said Tiffany.

"Convenient," said Jane.

"I would tell you if I was allowed, and you know what? I actually find your attitude paradoxical. I get the reluctance to kill, that's a good thing, but if you're spending all your time finding any way you can to survive without taking a life, you could die, or your friends, or you AND your friends along with you. You don't always have PFTs, and PFTs aren't always effective, and sometimes you only have your bare hands or a butter knife, do you get what I'm saying?" asked Tiffany.

"Yeah, I do … Tiffany, if you felt you had to kill to achieve something, would you?"

"Depends on the objective, my survival or the survival of people I care about or the survival of people I'm barely aware of, and I have no alternative course of action? I won't ignore alternative courses of action that present themselves, but I won't be frozen by indecision either," said Tiffany.

"So you will kill?" ask Jane.

"I don't know," said Tiffany, "how can I know? Ask a precog."

They stood in silence.

"Anything else?" asked Tiffany.

" … … I think that's it, need a word with Brittany and Stacy," said Jane.

"You can go now."

"Good," growled Tiffany as she left.

A few seconds after Tiffany left, Jane asked "What do we want to do? We have a cast adamantium rule about not killing, and she said she won't live by that."

"Well, we don't know she did kill anyone, I don't doubt she has as a SEAL, but unless the records are released to us, we have no evidence to act on."

"She Can't discuss it," snorted Jane.

"You'd get that response if you ask her if she de-orbited the moon last week," said Brittany.

"Some point she might," said Jane.

"Some point you might swear near a toddler," said Brittany, "can't dismiss her on 'Might' either," said Brittany.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Daria saw Tiffany re-enter the room and approached her, noting the furious look on her face. Daria asked "What happened?"

"Can't discuss it, need to talk to Xavier. Want to try out the Danger Room," said Tiffany.

"Okay, have fun," said Daria as she turned to the door Tiffany had entered the room from.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"You're not chucking Tiffany out over this are you?" asked Daria.

Jane, Stacy and Brittany looked stunned at her, having been interrupted by her entry.

"No, there's nothing to base dismissal on, why?" asked Stacy.

"She just came from you guys looking pissed off, Jane, she helped us escape, we had no way of knowing help was inbound," said Daria.

"That's a sudden turn around, earlier you were all against Tiffany," said Jane.

"THAT ISSUE HAS SINCE BEEN RESOLVED!" said Daria.

"Well, this hasn't, you know full well we absolutely can not go around killing people," said Jane.

"Yeah, absolute, nice word there, like those F15 pilots following Gulf War One that saw those Republican Guard helos incinerating Kurds and ABSOLUTELY could not intervene," said Daria, "fully loaded with more than enough AIM-9s and AMRAAMs," said Daria.

"You still don't agree with that policy," said Jane, "that's fine, and we'll keep considering your proposals that we cha-"

Daria walked off.

"DARIA! GET BACK HERE!" shouted Jane.

Jane ran after Daria and stopped right in front of her, saying "YOU WOULD HAVE US HEAR YOU OUT WHEN YOU REPEAT THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER, YOU CAN AT LEAST HEAR ME OUT BACK!"

"I HAVE THE RIGHT TO DISAGREE, JUST NOT THE RIGHT TO BREAK WITH POLICY, THAT JUST ABOUT COVER IT?" asked Daria.

"YES! THAT EXACTLY COVERS IT!" replied Jane.

"GOOD! I'M GONNA SEE IF TIFFANY WOULD MIND SHARING THE DANGER ROOM WITH ME!" replied Daria. She then walked off.

"WHATEVER! HAVE FUN!" replied Jane.

"THANKYOU, I WILL!" Replied Daria.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Fran was not legion material because she had killed. She was staying at the Xavier institute.

The first Gridrunner had been retrieved by Quest corporation, the second was parked on the Xavier Institute lawn.

Daria and Tiffany were outpacing the other Legionnaires as they walked towards it.

"I can't tell them if I killed anyone because it's a state secret, Daria, what the hell happened after I left? We've had disagreements, but this feels like something else entirely," said Tiffany.

"I dunno, it's just Jane being Jane I guess," said Daria.

"Just Jane being Jane … Daria, I've never known Jane to be that serious, even when she was Legion Prez," said Tiffany.

"Yeah, well, we made a constitution, one of the things that got included was that Legionnaires can not kill, even in self defence, apparently the benefit of the doubt makes it too easy to disguise unjustifiable kills as justifiable ones, I disagree because it can slow down our response in a crisis and get more people killed. And then our differences were cemented because Jane thinks I'm being a 'misery chick', and that I want a way to vent frustration at life or something along those lines."

"It's all about perception," said Tiffany.

"Yeah, approximately," said Daria as she and Tiffany entered through the front starboard door.

"Jane really had it in for me," said Tiffany, "felt like she thinks I'm some kind of monster."

"Yeah, that has me worried," said Daria, "I think Jane's getting some kind of mental myopia. I keep thinking about that night those people from the future tried to kill us in our sleep, Penny Lane, Jane's sister, tried to kill Jane, I mean, I realise Penny was absolutely bat faeces, but I wonder if there was a grain of truth in there?"

"Is that something you mentioned to Jane?" asked Tiffany as they sat down, Daria in the Co-pilot's station, Tiffany right behind her.

As Daria fired up the APU and ran system diagnostics in preparation for take off, she said "Not in those terms, Penny being bat faeces means the baby getting chucked with the bath water. I've based my arguments on projected scenarios we're likely to face and situations where we're not in control. I'm arguing for flexibility, she's trying to reign everything in, and it's hard for me to get Quinn on side most of the time. Quinn favours Jane because of the misery chick thing, and whoever the prez and vice prez are, they generally go with the advice of the majority of the founders, so most the time my input is outright ignored."

"Damn … This sounds bad," said Tiffany, "I've actually learned a lot of military history from USAES, main reason a lot of the spectacular screw ups occur is because personal conflict interferes with the decision making process."

"Yeah," said Daria.

Charles and Brittany arrived in the flight deck, the rest of the legionnaires taking seats in the main seating area. The lights indicating the door was open changed shortly after they heard the doors close.

"Home?" asked Daria, as she checked the throttles were at idle.

"Home," said Brittany.

Charles pushed the engine start button.

Insert Scene Separator Here

"Welcome back Blum Deckler," said the Admiral as Tiffany entered his office.

"Glad to be back, sir," said Tiffany.

"I suppose I shouldn't ask about the crystal, given where the orders actually originated from," said the Admiral.

"It's been relocated, and I trust the people doing the relocating," said Tiffany, "The Legion can't use it for anything, it's only of use to anyone opposing the Legion, so whatever you think of the Legion, you can trust the Legion's motivated."

"And how do you feel about the Legion?" asked the Admiral.

Tiffany sighed and said "it's somewhat … … I'll need some time to think about that one sir, but I think the Legion might be in trouble."

"In what sense? … Are they likely to become a threat?" asked the Admiral.

"No, nothing like that, just some internal politics, it's personal, and I think it's only something the conflicted persons can solve," said Tiffany.

"What kind of conflict?" asked the Admiral.

"I only got Daria's side of this, and a dose of venom from Jane, it came up because I tried to kill someone when we escaped from Black Majesty's rent-a-soldier stronghold, Jane asked me if I killed anyone, I couldn't answer of course because all my kills occurred after I became a SEAL, if the operations ever become declassified, I'm probably out of the Legion. I guess I'm pissed off at that, but it was more than just some rule Jane thought might be a good idea at the time, she's really pissed off at me. … Daria, she feels Jane's losing the plot, pushing for policies that will make the Legion less effective. … I'm afraid the Legion might split along those lines, I don't see open hostility occurring, people kicking the faeces out of each other or anything like that … … Like I said, only-"

"The conflicted persons can solve it, okay, I'm with you. … Given what your last mission entailed, I'm inclined to give you leave to get your head together, take a night to think about it, tell me tomorrow if you think you need it, I only want you operational if you're head's in the game. Dismissed."

"Sir," said Tiffany as she stood to attention and then left.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Tiffany placed her Legion uniform in her cupboard next to her dress uniforms, her various UCP uniforms, and her civilian attire.

She retrieved the Legion badge out of her bag and sat on her bed. She opened it and looked at it.

"To think I was more worried about the Navy accepting me while I was still a Legionnaire."

Insert Scene Separator Here

Stacy saved the files and turned to Brittany. "That's it then."

"I sure hope so," said Brittany, "having all those spies going through our files and sabotaging everything is just so embarrassing."

"Yeah, speaking of awkward topics, Tiffany: … What do we do?"

"We can't prove she killed anyone, unless the files become declassified, we can't expel her," said Brittany.

"I DON'T WANT TO EXPEL HER, DAMN IT BRITTANY, SHE'S MY FRIEND!" said Stacy.

Brittany looked sympathetic.

"Sorry, but this is just some awful screw up isn't it?" said Stacy.

"Quinn's just as smart as Daria and Jane, they're two to one in favour of the no kill rule," said Brittany.

"That's what they think, what do you think? You're not exactly intellectually challenged when it comes to war," said Stacy.

Brittany pushed her chair back from her desk and span around.

Eventually she said "I think there's a public relations side that's of equal importance to us, we're not just a combat force, we're also meant to be role models, we promote death and destruction, we promote a new generation of villains, I think that's Jane's motivation, Daria's straight up self defence and screw what the world thinks of you for it. … If we modify that rule, we need something that meets both needs to replace it with."

"A compromise. They'll love that," said Stacy.

"A compromise is a deal where nobody's happy," said Brittany. After a pause she said "I don't know who originally said it, but I think Daria recited it at least once."

Insert Scene Separator Here

The cockpit of the submarine consisted of a tube of diamond with an adamantium hatch on the back.

Any electronic systems interfaced to the outside through optical electronic connections, there were lithium battery banks that used four propellers for main thrust, pitch and yaw, and the four propellers could be turned 90 degrees for roll.

The submarine had two arms, one carried a giant shaped charge, it's buoyancy neutralised with tanks of ammonia, the other carried the soul crystal and a thermite charge, also neutralised by ammonia tanks.

The first thing Jane had to do was blast as much of the sand and loose soil away from under the shaped charge as possible. This was achieved by blasting water from the middle of a panel under the shaped charge, this blasted the mud out from under it and it just fell into place.

Creating a vacuum at that depth was not realistic, so they connected a bottle of liquid hydrogen and piped water around the tank to boil it off as they dived, filling the void with pressurised hydrogen. There was also a lump of thermite to heat the hydrogen up, a refractory liner on the plate lining the hollow stopped the charge from cooking off, but this won't be used until Jane was at an appropriate standoff.

The charge placed, Jane disconnected the charge from the submarine and disconnected the ammonia tank from the charge, letting it rise to the surface. Jane backed the submarine off about 300 metres.

The shaped charge was big, it had to punch a hole wide enough to accept the crystal as deep as possible. Daria had designed the submarine to withstand the overpressure at that distance, but the way they had been getting along lately, Jane found herself wondering if she could really trust Daria not to take advantage of this.

She eventually armed the hellbox and fired.

She felt the submarine oscillate away from and towards the hypocentre.

There was too much solid material suspended in the water for her to see anything ahead of her, the submarine was using a sonar mapping system to locate itself.

Jane returned to the hypocentre.

The Soul Crystal was in a steel casket filled with cobalt 60, the casket had some tabs welded to it, and those tabs had shaped charges on the end that would nail the tabs to the inside of the hole, and there was a quantity of sand over the crystal so that the casket and tabs would remain intact. There was a hose to blast mud and sand out of the way in case a load of that had gotten in the way.

The ammonia tank on the soul crystal floated away, the thermite charge weighed down on the water blast.

It seemed to drop right into the hole, but did not continue to sink at a slower rate as it would if there was a load of sand in the way, and Jane was close enough that she'd see if there was sand being blasted out the way. Looks like they added something they didn't need.

'Well, when you need it, and haven't got it, …'

That was it then.

She backed the submarine away about twenty metres and armed the hell box again.

She fired.

She didn't see anything until the sintered thermite was about 90 consumed. The hole was never going to completely absorb that amount of thermite, that was deliberate so that the thermite would completely fill the hole and cover it, sand currently suspended in the water would eventually settle on it.

In a couple of months the crystal will be sucked under the continent of South America, and it shouldn't appear again unless it got sucked into a volcanic eruption, and the location was picked specifically to avoid that.

Jane parked the submarine at the top of the trench and asked her passenger and said "Okay, make the earth move."

"Lame," said Lance. He then started the quake that would loosen the plates sufficiently to allow the plates to move, pushing the crystal under the overriding plate.

Also, if a rockslide were to land on the top of the burial site, that wouldn't be a bad thing.

Eventually Lance said "Aww man, that's as far as I can do at the moment."

Jane, having locked the sonar onto some terrain features so she could measure movement, said "One hundred and thirty metres subduction … that should do it."

"How come I never hard of this soul crystal thing?" asked Lance, "sounds like something SHIELD should have been all over."

"We did what we could to contain knowledge of the soul crystal to try to reduce the number of bad guys chasing after it," said Jane.

"Okay, seems sensible," said Lance, "the Navy seemed to know."

"Probably through Armalin," said Jane, "he became involved when Brittany stole the crystal from us, this was before we became aware of her abilities, it co-opted her, made her try to kill and then brainwash Stacy, we recovered the crystal and had to explain the whole thing to him, and then, couple months later, Black Majesty shows up, kicks everyone's ass, and Armalin was the one who had to show up with this big alien gun with irreplaceable ammo and shot him to near nothingness."

"And he came back from that did he?" asked Lance.

"Yeah, he came to Xavier's attention when he freed Juggernaut to try to divert us, sent Nightcrawler and Rogue after them both, and he kept up the pressure on Black Majesty to the point where Black Majesty started wearing a compliance band to get off of Cerebro, then he lost Xavier's people through old fashioned slight of hand and evasion."

"Then he appears again, abducting you, Daria and Tiffany, and then Betty takes him out to sea and blows him up," said Lance.

"Hope we don't have to deal with that guy again," said Jane.

"Yeah, now I'm aware of that guy, so is SHIELD," said Lance.

"Lance, if he gets inside your head and finds out where that god damn crystal is, I'll personally find you and kick your ass to the far side of the Andromeda galaxy," said Jane.

"Wasn't the whole point of this exercise to MAKE the crystal inaccessible?" asked Lance.

"The Titanic's unsinkable, Space travel's so safe now we should send a teacher up, that fan disc's cracked … ah, just a little crack, Iraq's army's crap, let's invade, it'll be easy, oh, big crisis, little bit of foam bouncing off the shuttle," said Jane.

"Okay, okay, I get it," said Lance, "but if a case involving the guy crosses my desk, I HAVE to deal with it, okay?"

"Okay," said Jane, "just don't EVER get complacent, only reason we're doing this is because we can't find a black hole we can easily get to, we send it in an unmanned probe, aliens could get it before it reaches it's target, and the aliens able to get it would have the ability to give Earth a Venus makeover."

"Yeah, I got it, thank you," said Lance.

Insert Scene Separator Here

Quinn headed off to bed.

The crystal had been successfully relocated. There were some Legionnaires that had not been told of it's existence, let alone it's location, and getting them to restrain their curiosity and convincing them to "Just trust that we know what we're doing" was such a pain in the ass, containing knowledge was vital. Jane, Daria and Lance were the ones that had finally decided what to do with the crystal, and all anyone knew was it would be dropped somewhere on the Pacific basin. Of course Quinn, and probably everyone else knew that the logical place to stick it was a subduction zone, and Lance's involvement … Lance, callsign Avalanche, causes earthquakes, so any earthquakes occurring on a deep sea trench would be a dead give away.

She arrived in her quarters and turned on the news.

"An unusual amount of earthquakes occurred all along the so called 'Ring Of Fire' today, the epicentres were so numerous that geologists are baffled," said the newsreader.

Quinn smiled.

How long is that subduction zone? Nine thousand kilometres? No way was anyone going to be able to determine it's location from that.

"The activity started at locations far enough from population centres that preparations could be made before any structural collapse could occur, but the actual strength of the quakes never seemed to do more than throw some small tsunamis, the damage totals less than fifteen million dollars in flooded out homes and beached watercraft, any watercraft that had their owners nearby made got far enough off the continental shelf to avoid getting caught."

Did Daria and/or Xavier have something to do with that?

Quinn turned off the news and turned to her bed.

She pulled her nightwear out of her cupboard and changed into it and peeled back the quilt.

"AWW COME ON!" Shouted Quinn as she found a rose and love note in the middle of her bed, "IT'S CALLED STALKING, NOT VERY ROMANTIC! HELLO! … … Stupid bunny boiling superpowered asshole."

Insert Scene Separator Here

End.


	4. The Known Future

Constraints: Follows 'Crystal Clear'

Synopsis: Short on super villains, the Legion and the Seals turn their attention to the South American drug cartels, only to find themselves hunting super villains again.

The Known Future

Content: A very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.

Legal: Daria = MTV, X-Men = Warner Brothers, LLH = Brother Grimace and Roentgen, Elfen Lied = Manga.

[===]

Harman Roberts entered the room and asked what the problem was. His rangers training which he now turned to the mercenary game prepared him for everything.

"It's too warm."

He opened the cabinet and it was, indeed, too warm.

He pulled it out and smelt something burning.

The burning smell would otherwise be taken out by the vent behind the unit's radiator.

He pulled the plug and pulled the unit completely free of it's alcove, he pulled a screwdriver from his pocket and removed the cover from the motor's starter. "Starter circuit's burnt."

He removed the destroyed module from the motor and stood up and said "I'll move you to a new room, and refund the drink from the mini-bar, sorry for the inconvenience."

Why the hell did these fridge manufacturers use crystals to generate their phase differential? Not like they're that short of room that they can't just use a capacitor for this.

He returned downstairs to the reception area and told the receptionist "Need to transfer the Dawson couple to a new room, refund the drink from their mini-bar, I'm going to figure out what capacitors to order, no way am I ordering a whole new fridge for how many hundred bucks when a five dollar capacitor will get it up and running again."

"Boss," acknowledged the receptionist, he then started entering the changes on his computer.

They hadn't had a customer in months. Conflicts around the world were dieing down, and that was annoying as hell, because that meant he'd soon be faced with a choice between turning his attention not the hotel full time or seeking employment with some drug cartel.

Aside from the moral implications of working for a cartel, it would also bring him in direct conflict with US or US backed forces.

Of course, that line had been crossed when they abducted those Legionnaires.

Maybe it was time to cross that line.

He had to get his instructors back though.

Two of his former green berets had been killed by Fran, the other two had been arrested along with half his force.

He was working on a plan to rescue them. They hadn't been able to revive everyone before they had to bug out, and one thing you quickly realise about the private soldier business, you had to make choices about who you break out of prison, and he had to minimise the risk by breaking out only those who were in the same prison as his most valuable assets.

He had contacts in the prison service, so he knew which prison his people were being held in, and as it happened, they were all in the same prison, so this time he had been lucky, but he needed to figure out if he could eliminate the possibility of this ever happening again.

One thing is for sure, if he rescues his people from prison, their loyalty to him would be reinforced and he would have an easier time controlling them.

He found an electronics website and looked at the capacitors on offer.

[Scene Separator]

"We need an operation," said Quinn.

"Hell no, first you want us all to do makeup and now you want to-" said Daria as she fired off another PFT discharge at the cue ball. Daria and Quinn had set up a cordon around a snooker table so that they'd have to really aim as opposed to simply firing from point blank.

"No, not a surgical operation, a save the world operation," said Quinn as she walked around the snooker table, figuring out what her shot should go.

"I get it," said Daria, "but the fact there's no evil afoot at the moment is a goooood thinnnng, yeah?"

"Yeah, except you're going stir crazy again," said Quinn as she took her shot.

"Aww come on, if I were going stir crazy, I'd be painting the building with Nitrogen Tri-iodide paste," countered Daria.

With a snap and a blast of purple smoke, the PA system came to life, Brittany said "Daria, you painted my keyboard with exploding paste AGAIN!"

Daria awkwardly shrugged and said "Okay, you're right, we need some villains to kick around the world," as she started working on her next shot. "Do we have to restrict ourselves to metahuman threats? If none of our priority threat boards have any activity on them, maybe we could work on some normal criminals."

Daria's next shot potted a red ball, the cue ball also struck a blue ball, potting that, and then a second red ball before stopping behind the yellow ball from a nearby pocket. "Perfection, ha-hah."

Tom then entered the firing range, holding a knife and a fork, the utensils and his hand covered in a purple dust. Tom said "Daria, seriously, not sanitary, okay? Explosives DO NOT GO ON CUTLERY OR OTHER ITEMS MEANT FOR HANDLING FOODSTUFFS!"

"Yeah, okay," said Daria.

Then Mack entered and said "Run."

"What?" asked Daria.

"Run, now, any direction- … Crap."

The now extremely audible string of impacts approached and Stacy entered, completely feral and completely naked, carrying a purple stained pair of panties in a purple stained hand. She pounced on Daria, snarling, holding the purple stained panties in one hand to Daria's face, her other hand squeezing Daria's throat, her fingers right up against Daria's jaw line to control where Daria could look.

"Never mind," said Mack.

"Stacy, she won't learn nothing if she's dead, let her go," said Quinn.

Stacy remained in position, snarling, Daria took no action.

"Nice view," said Tom. Mack looked at him wondering how he suddenly became stupider than George Bush Part Deux.

Stacy snapped around and locked onto Tom.

"Turn around again," said Tom, seemingly oblivious to the apparent danger.

Stacy then ran after him, Tom left.

About ten seconds later, Daria said "Let's find some street punks."

[Scene Separator]

Harman Roberts hung up the phone and sat back, staring at the ceiling.

Phoning around previous employers looking for work was always frustrating, everyone was just TOO DAMN FRIENDLY these days.

He was considering carrying out attacks of his own to start something so that there would be business for him, but there was a chance one of his team would be captured and as a result, not only would no one want to hire his team, but his team would instead be hunted.

Aside from not making any money, he couldn't just come back here once he'd broken his people out of prison, he needed somewhere else to go, and that meant finding a customer that would be willing to assist him in the prison break.

Someone knocked on the door.

Harman brought up a webpage on his hotel business's bank and said "Come in."

One of his customers, a man named Waldo Noland, entered.

"What can I do for you Mr … Noland, right?" asked Harman.

"I work for someone who would like to have some of your … other … services."

Potential customer or disguised agent?

Harman said "I see," before he picked up an RF sensor box and switched it on.

The structure was a faraday cage, he could turn off the only cell phone relay at the flick of a switch, but he also had to look for recording devices, anything active or metallic should show up.

The guy raised his hands and allowed Harman to scan all over.

Harman then sat back down and reached over to the consumer unit located right over his desk. He turned off the Cell phone relay. If anyone is making or receiving a call at this time, this would be an annoyance, but as long as he restored it within five minutes, there shouldn't be any complaints, especially since oly he and his staff knew the hotel had it's own relay and was RF resistant.

"I take it by your tone you're seeking to employ me and my team as mercenaries, would that be an accurate perception?"

"It is. My boss runs the west Columbian coke farms and has a few meth labs, do you have a problem working for narcotics distributors?"

"No I do not. I will need some time, however, to break some of my team out of jail, and if I could co-ordinate with your people to assist in our transport out, that should break any trail the Marshals might follow."

"We could provide assistance if you like, more than a few of us would love the opportunity to annihilate a few screws."

"Good idea, then our leaders would feel even freer to throw yet more resources into the war on drugs. I'd much rather keep this as low key as possible, soldiers dying abroad is a demoraliser, LEOs dying at home is a challenge."

"Seems strange that you would want to limit the scale of the war," said Waldo.

"I want a reputation for winning wars, a reputation for screwing up is bad for business," said Harman.

"Okay, so how do you plan to get your men out?" asked Waldo.

Harman thought about his response.

"By guile."

"Care to elaborate?" asked Waldo.

"Not yet." Harman said, picking up a US road atlas, he opened a page and said "Just have a Dash 7 or similar aircraft ready at this location, we'll be there in three days."

"Okay," said Waldo, as he left.

[Scene Separator]

Tiffany poked her head out of the wall of the underground facility.

Well built for a meth lab.

Construction method often left a lot to be desired, usually it consisted of posts driven into the ground, planks of wood for a ceiling, and usually nothing done to keep the wood dry, but these guys had apparently gone all out to build a concrete arch, there were signs of plastic sheets between the segments, melted back, power plant in a completely separate hole.

Good levels of light, fume boxes for the more hazardous phases, eye wash stations, everything you could want when cooking up methamphetamines.

Too bad it had to be deleted.

Tiffany located the flammable chemical store and pulled her face back into the wall.

The next time she emerged from the wall, she was behind the flammable chemical store.

She ignited the satchel charge before she moved it out of the wall. The fuse had ten seconds, Tiffany had spent three already, so she pulled back into the wall and swam for it.

She emerged from the ground 20 metres away and was fully above ground before she heard the explosion.

The structural damage was likely to be minimal because the charge had detonated within the room, it had been close enough to the wall and was in direct contact with the floor so there would be a crater in both, but the main effect was that all the flammable material had been blown all over the room, and the inside was now a furnace, and the air coming in from above while the heavily carbonising exhaust rose caused this unstable pulse effect.

Another source of air was the ventilation system, if nothing else worked, that would keep the fire going.

As long as that kept going, the internal temperature would probably rise until the fire could sustain itself.

Tiffany found the rest of her team and Seaman Jack Benson said "Do we get some play on the next one?"

"Yeah, okay," said Tiffany, admitting to herself she had been somewhat selfish lately.

Next drug factory would be blown up by the rest of her team.

[Scene Separator]

Dominic Greyson emerged from the bushes where he would drag his victim once he had stunned her.

His target continued on her journey, walking alone, though the park, there was no one around that could happen across before he had completed his operation.

As soon as he was close enough, he drew and fired his taser.

The woman did not fall over.

He ran to close range and use the syringe, getting within half a metre before he noticed a prickling sensation.

He continued another ten centimetres before a blindingly bright arc ignited between his syringe needle and her shoulder.

The stimulation caused him to snap the syringe in two and trip over his own feet and collide with her.

He failed to take any action before the woman was sat on top of him, she pinned his hands over his head and he felt a throbbing sensation between where her hands pinned his and where her pelvis pinned his.

"So, you're the night park rapist," said the woman.

"You're Quinn?" asked Domonic.

"Yes I am."

Quinn looked around and said "We're all alone here, if you scream, it's unlikely anyone will hear you."

He started to struggle against her. After half a minute he said "Please don't hurt me," his voice quivering with fear. His face flushed with embarrassment at sounding like one of his victims.

"Why not?" asked Quinn, increasing the voltage enough that the throbbing turned into a dull ache.

There had been news articles showing Quinn belting out enough current to blow neat holes clean through granite.

"It's interesting how invasive electrocution is, the electric current penetrates your cells between the entry point and the exit point, it stimulates muscles, it's incredibly painful, I could make you soil yourself against your will, I could mess with your heart, I could screw your brain up, and I'd be able to do it without you being able to stop me. Any other woman would have to settle for shoving a broom handle up your ass." Quinn leaned in close to his face, and he felt a prickling sensation on his lips and on the side of his nose.

After half a minute, Quinn whispered "or you could turn yourself in to the nearest precinct and save yourself a screw load of pain. What do you reckon? Prison or me? Hmm?"

"Prison, please, let me go to prison," he whimpered.

Quinn sat up and sighed, looking disappointed, saying "Okay," she stood up and gestured towards the nearest police station saying "let's go."

[Scene Separator]

"And here's where we prepare our crack," said the drug dealer as he lead the cops into the kitchen.

It was a little bizarre that the drug dealers had called the cops and suddenly started talking them through their operation instead of waiting for someone to report them to the police and then putting up all this armed resistance they normally put up.

"We normally store the raw cocaine up here," he opened the wall mounted cupboard and pointed out the three 1kg packages of raw cocaine and the five 500g boxes of baking soda, the scales and the jugs, he then opened the oven where four baking trays with a white sludge in them were drying out, the oven set to 80 degrees Celsius, "this is where we dry the stuff out, we prefer electric ovens for this because gas ovens tend to be saturated with water vapour, that requires us to boil it which obviously means a load of our product ends up on the insides of the oven and the material ends up foaming or even decomposing on the underside of the tray, electric we can use lower temperatures and we end up with a denser product."

He then stood up and said "I think that's everything. … Another thing is that I'm not usually this polite and personable, only reason I am at the moment is because a telepath is controlling me, as soon as she stops, and that'll be when she feels I'm firmly in your custody, I'm going to be physically and verbally abusive and difficult to control, so if you've seen enough to proceed with the arrest … "

"We have," said the uniform sergeant, somewhat bemused with the situation.

"Okay then," said the drug dealer as he turned towards a wall, placing one hand on the wall and the other behind his back in anticipation.

The sergeant calmly cuffed him, talking him through his status and his rights to legal representation and to have someone informed of his arrest.

[Scene Separator]

Quinn followed the serial rapist as he entered the police reception area.

He walked up to the desk sergeant and said "I'm the night park rapist, my DNA and fingerprints should confirm it, please arrest me now."

Daria entered the reception area.

She then looked to Quinn.

"There was no part of that which was not fun," said Quinn, a smug pose and highly satisfied grin on her face.

"Okay, my drug dealers should be entering the custody area in a minute."

A group of kids ran in, and announced "we're the ones that were tagging the schools, arrest us, quick."

They appeared to be soaked around the tops of their shirts and the smell of urine appeared.

Stacy entered, beaming with pride.

Daria looked to Stacy and said "Stacy … tell me you didn't … "

"They were leaving their mark on public property, seemed only right that I leave my mark on them."

"Ho-kayyy, you need to dial it down a bit, seriously," said Daria. As several cops entered to make the arrests.

"You can talk, Peter Logan," said Stacy.

"Yeah, but, the cops, do we hate them?" asked Daria as she looked over to the cops as they struggled to breathe around their prisoners.

"Ah … Right," said Stacy, "it just seemed the thing to do at the time."

"Want to find more criminals, or do we knock off now?" asked Daria.

They thought about it and Stacy said "We'll pick this up again tomorrow."

They then left.

[Scene Separator]

"Okay, here are your prisoners," said the warden as the prison guards emerged with the orange jumpsuit clad men.

Four of the pseudo-marshals started moving the prisoners into the back of the refurbished truck.

Harman had to make this look as real as possible. He was prepared to start killing prison guards if that was what had to happen to assure his escape.

He had the truck rigged with smoke grenades to hide himself and the truck as they depart and had a sniper set off way in the distance with a .50 rifle so prison snipers could be deleted, but what he had told Waldo was the truth: You want to limit the motivation of the US government to pour more resources into this if you can, and the cake and ass party of the war on terror was fresh enough that US involvement in south America could be seen as wasteful by enough people to show up on the surveys politicians run to decide what they want to say to get people to vote for them.

Soldiers dying abroad = reason to quit. LEOs being slaughtered at home = reason to get violent.

Everything went smoothly and he got in the truck along with the rest of his pseudo-marshals.

The sniper would wait until they were clear and he would get on his motorbike and shot off after them.

The second sniper that would keep anyone walking up to the first sniper would then get on his bike and join them.

Harman didn't know if he could trust this Waldo guy, so he had his people build a couple of aircraft to assist their travel from the US.

One new trick he had learned was how to swindle loan sharks. The people that ran his hotel when he was away knew he and his team were mercenaries, but didn't care about that, so they were happy to assist him in he odd deception if it didn't seem to dangerous and it paid well.

What they would do is they would pretend to move into an estate and pretend to apply to a bank for a loan. Loan sharks look for rejects to sell loans to. Usually those sharks would ask for absurd levels of interest that would basically keep the client paying them back until they basically died from a cardiovascular disorder.

The pride and satisfaction of putting those types in the poor house was usually as sweet as the money they make from it, Harman's people, even just the hotel workers, were just too good at staying hidden from them.

But it still didn't pay anything like what warlords were usually willing to fork out for some decent rent-a-soldiers.

Harman had learnt a thing or two from Wyatt when they had built their stealth helo, and he had applied that knowledge to the construction of two stealth aircraft. It had been surprisingly easy to construct a pair of turbofan engines, he managed to save a bunch of precision work by using a centrifuge compressor, he really didn't need to have the power plant itself all in one module, he could have the fan on the end of a long shaft, so he used a big carbon fibre fan in a big carbon fibre duct on the back of the aircraft like one of those boats you get for traversing the everglades.

That had left him a little freer in the shape of the engine, instead of having to condense the thing into a nicely streamlined pod, he could place it all over the fuselage behind the cockpit, so he had three centrifuge compressors that were rigged in series, he had heat exchanges between them where the fuel soaked the heat from the compressed air so that the compressors wouldn't melt, gave him a fantastic compression ratio, but then he still needed something capable of being rigid at 2000 Celsius.

Secondary adamantium was out of his price range, so he instead had to construct a laser capable of chucking out a couple of gigawatts, procure any scrap of tungsten carbide he could find, melt all that and cast it into something resembling a blade wheel.

It had to be a complete wheel because the CNC machines needed to make a perfectly fitting root would have cost as much as the aircraft he was trying to make.

What he was unable to build was a radar system, that required a computer, so weapons consisted of two M2s, a blacked out flashlight with cross hairs scratched off of it aimed at a plane of glass in place of a HUD, and four bodged stinger launchers that would hopefully lock onto the enemy instead of the sun or someone's chimney or even worse, the aircraft they were supposed to be protecting.

He had four qualified fixed wing pilots, and while they were happy to fly the aircraft, they dreaded having to use them in an actual fight, they had basically used traffic radar detectors to construct their RWR system, there was no way to know if their RWR would actually work since there was no need for any of them, even when they were in their regiments, to know the frequencies the air force use in their radar systems.

Hopefully their anti-AWACS missiles would work.

The anti-AWACS missile was this big ramjet powered weapon clad in stainless steel (except for it's Pyrex radome) that would locate the source of a radar pulse and follow it back to it's source. It would be passive for most of it's journey, using active occasionally until it got a strong enough signal to tell it was a couple of seconds away, and then full active so it would hit the main fuselage. It didn't have the capacity for much explosive, so they had basically placed an array of linear cutting charges around it in the hopes that one of them would slice through something vital.

It had no use for measurements of distance, it just needed a vector.

It was still a bodge job, and it was untested. Harman hoped he wouldn't need to down an AWACS, same reason as before, plus for all he knew the missile would end up going for a terrestrial TV station.

Still, if all this got him some violence, the whole reason for him quitting the army was that he wasn't getting enough actual combat for his tastes.

They came up on their first change of vehicle point.

Time to find out if Waldo was being straight up.

[Scene Separator]

Charles piloted the aircraft while Daria and Jodie were on the phones to the cops as they approached the location of the prison.

The escapees had a lead of an hour.

"Don't the local cops have traffic cameras?" asked Sandi as she leaned in through the door.

"Yeah, they do, so if Harman's extraction team broke the speed limit or did something else to attract attention, we'll know where they went," said Daria, "Best bet's going to be store front cameras, we'd need cameras that are constantly on, and even then we may not get the vehicle index, we're looking for a rigid UPS truck."

"Yeah, my conversations with the police have revealed five or six UPS trucks in town at about the time of the prison break," said Jodie, "all of them rigid."

Daria dialled UPS and said "Hi, I'm Daria Morgendorffer, I'm with the Legion, I need to determine which of the rigid UPS trucks seen wasn't yours."

"Yeah?" responded Jodie to another call. … "Right," She then turned to Daria saying "Cops just found sheets with a UPS truck skin printed on them just outside of town."

Still listening to the phone call and writing notes, Daria said "it could still look like a UPS truck, the skins could be a plant to decoy us."

"We could end up spread real thin on the ground if we're asking the cops to look for every rigid truck that happened through that town," said Sandi.

"Yeah, but I'll be able to sniff them out," said Stacy from her seat in the passenger seating area of the aircraft.

"As soon as we're subsonic, I'm going to step out and fly around, see if I can spot the truck myself," said Jane.

Normally this would be the exclusive jurisdiction of the full time US Marshals, but the Legion was interested because of their previous encounter with these guys.

[Scene Separator]

Tiffany led the team along the path.

There was no reason for Tiffany to cause a disturbance in the foliage, so she simply walked through everything as she carefully scanned every square minute of view for any sign of an enemy presence.

She heard something and signalled for those behind her to stop.

There was an airy high voice singing something.

It was coming from her 1o'clock vector.

Tiffany waved everyone to her left.

She then sunk herself into the ground and advanced, hoping to identify the source of the sound.

They were about 190 metres from their next target. They were at least 500 metres from the nearest village.

Of course kids were impulsive, so-

Here was a crunching noise behind Tiffany.

She turned.

She could no longer see the second SEAL in their formation. She looked around again and then headed off to try to locate the second-

"Jack!" she whispered as she found her second SEAL.

She then noticed his head was off.

Where was his head?

She felt something drop through her head and chest.

She moved back and saw Jack's head.

She looked up and around, trying to work out what was going on.

It quickly occurred to her that while she was trying to guess what was happening, the remaining two SEALs were on their way to getting dead.

"PEEL TO LZ! GO!"

The other two immediately started the peel cycle, third running while fourth shot at anywhere the enemy might be. They would switch every 30 metres.

Tiffany stayed close to them, but she was really after whoever had dismembered Jack.

She climbed up through a tree, trying to get a better view. Above the foliage and below the canopy, she had a fairly good view from 10 metres up.

She eventually identified one person following her team. The X-ray was apparently female, apparently dressed in a bright tee shirt and denim shorts. Not really interested in camouflage, is she? She also had pointy ears or horns, Tiffany couldn't tell which. She didn't really care that much either. The woman was running after her team. Anyone hearing gunfire would normally go the other way or start making hot, passionate love with the ground. Tiffany shot at the individual.

The PFT knocked the X-ray over.

Tiffany dropped down through the tree and approached.

The X-ray was hopefully unconscious, this woman was obviously super powered, telekinetic, the protrusions were horns, and Tiffany felt something pass through her.

She turned around and saw another woman, similar dress, same cranial features, Tiffany shot at her.

The woman was out of the way before Tiffany could close the contacts within the pickle button, and suddenly several trees were coming down.

Tiffany gave chase.

She eventually stopped and looked around.

She heard nothing.

She returned to the location of the unconscious woman.

She was gone.

"Great. She gets away with murder, and all I get is this lousy loss."

Tiffany returned to Jack's body and phased it and his head 1.8 metres into the ground.

She noted the GPS co-ordinates and started towards the LZ to hook up with her surviving team members.

No way she could retrieve a body AND protect herself at the same time.

Body would have to be relocated when it was safe for someone to come and do that at a later date.

She quickly came across her other two SEALs.

They were hanging around.

From the trees.

In pieces.

By their small intestines.

"Har-de-har, har, har!" growled Tiffany.

[Scene Separator]

"This _Dash 7_ aircraft was spotted at these two locations at these dates, it was searched on it's way in, no drugs or other contraband, Visa said it was carrying some fashion models, a photo crew and a director for a company that no longer seems to exist and the current occupants can't ever remember seeing in their thirty years of tenancy.

"Prison break wasn't detected until the aircraft was two hundred klicks away, and then no one thought to rewind the tape and find out what aircraft were launching from the area, another thing to note was that two other aircraft were seen at about the same time, but _AWACS_ didn't see them, so if it was Harman's people on that _Dash 7_ as it left, he probably had a fighter escort, _Dash 7_ is now out of the country, last seen headed towards Columbia," said Daria.

They were talking to each other over video phone lines, Daria and Sandi from the _Gridrunner_, Julia from her office, Brittany from her office.

"The US Marshals that were supposed to have issued the move order have no memory of issuing the orders, and the fakes that showed up seemed to know internal procedure down to the gesture, so I'm looking for anything in the phone records of any marshals and prison staff connected with the case," said Jodie.

"Can we pursue these guys?" asked Brittany.

"Officially and popularly, the Columbians are supposed to be in close co-operation with us. Problem is that the cartels own the courts, getting them extradited takes forever and a day, by which time, a cock-up in an attempt to transfer the prisoners between prisons or to or from court will have freed them," said Julia.

"Whole region's a mess, if Harman's people went there, they've probably got an employer," said Daria, "We go after them, we'll end up deeply involved in the war on drugs."

"Here we go," said Sandi.

"Exactly," said Daria.

"Excuse me?" asked Julia.

"I agree that substance addiction drives up crime, but I think the current doctrine of tougher sentences for simple possession is ass backwards, we need to focus exclusively on the dealers, otherwise all we do is push the addicts deeper into their addiction," said Daria.

"Dealers are harder to find, it's easier to find the addicts," said Sandi.

"It's also easier to use steroids instead of doing physical training," said Daria, "Dealers are the bottleneck, let the addicts remain free, you can follow them to the dealers."

"What if the dealers take greater care in vetting their customers?" ask Sandi.

"That'll drive down crime, and make drug dealing less profitable," said Daria. "Currently dealers don't give a screw, they have no incentive beyond maximising their profit."

"And how do we deter addicts from continuing their addiction?" asked Sandi.

"We make the substances unavailable, and we pick our battles, why the screw is cannabis illegal?" Asked Daria.

"THIS is fascinating, but … " Julia said, trying to get everyone back on track, "we have two options if we still want to pursue these guys, we can do it above board, get the Columbians to let us work on their patch, which means the cartels know where we are at all times, or we do it under the table, enter Columbia illegally and hunt them down and hopefully not cause a diplomatic incident in the process. There's a third option: Wait for them to return to the US, which could be any time, and we have no way of finding out when that will be."

"We go after them while they're lying low, we're going to have serious trouble finding them, we need to go after them when they're attending a gig, gives us the possibility of attracting them into our field of view," said Daria.

"How do we do that?" asked Sandi.

"Cartel's own Columbia's judiciary?" asked Daria.

"Yes?" asked Sandi.

"There you go," said Daria.

"Okayyyyyyy, sounds like we're discussing something HIGHLY illegal here, so let's all meet up at Legion Tower where I can explain face to face why this is a bad idea and what kind of prison you're likely to wind up in if you breech the Bowman acts," said Julia.

[Scene Separator]

"Okay, so, how do you propose we do this?" asked Julia.

"First Brittany bugs all the people that are useful to the Columbian Cartels that have jobs they shouldn't, then we use a _Mk 5 Gridrunner_ to knock out any radar assisted air defences with the MASERs. _L1_ with Confinement Mist bombs to capture any enemy forces we find, anyone not operating the aircraft or planting surveillance gear on the ground to de-glue and capture as many land forces as possible, Jodie does SEAD, I do CAS, everyone else on the deck, I'll be using my powers to tell Cartel gangster from Columbian Soldier or other allied operative," said Daria, "Like it?"

"Love it," said Brittany.

"Don't we already have Radar stealth on our aircraft?" asked Julia.

"We do, but that's only good up to a point, I'll be close enough to the deck to read peoples minds, but I need to be sufficiently high off the ground in order for the confinement mist bombs to function, puts me well into the range of triple A and most SAM systems, anyone using a shoulder launched fox 2, I'll just have to read and strafe with my PFTs," said Daria.

"Where do we stick our captives?" asked Julia.

"Somewhere where the Columbian Army can find them, that way we start people talking to people we're interested in," said Daria.

"Nice," said Jodie.

"Okay, here's a question: What if we get caught?" asked Jane.

"What if someone manages to kill us, what if we get complacent one day on an operation, or even when we're crossing the road?" asked Daria. "This is our best chance to get these guys, we leave them, they're only going to be an even bigger problem later, once we have them, we're out of there."

"Okay, this is what I don't get about you Daria, you'll basically avoid finding a boyfriend or looking good like the plague, that all scares you for some reason, yet you're all over insane risks when it comes to operations," said Sandi.

"And I don't get you being the other way around," said Daria.

"Excuse me? I'm as much of an action diva as you are, I just also go out and meet people too," said Sandi.

"Which makes you half as productive as me," said Daria.

Sandi triplicated.

"Even with three of you," said Daria.

"Yeah," "Right," "Whatever," said the Sandis.

"We have a go already?" asked Jane.

"Ummm, … sure," said Brittany.

[Scene Separator]

"Okay, we're here, who do we talk to about operations?" asked Harman as he stepped off the back of the aircraft.

"That would be me, but I get my orders from someone else," said Waldo.

"Okay, got anything for us now?"

"Relax, take a load off, mr … "

Harman felt himself tighten up with irritation when he hear the voice of Buck Conroy, editor of Brutal Mercenary Magazine.

Harman glared at Waldo, pointing his thumb at Buck for a second before turning and saying "Okay, Buck."

"That's General Conroy, Major."

'Yeah, right, General' Harman thought as he forced himself to snap to attention and salute the prick as opposed to Prince Albert-ing him with a bullet. "My apologies, general, but don't you think it would be a good idea to start thinking about the battle space and the enemy's likely activity while we're waiting for orders to arrive?"

There was a reason Harman hadn't promoted himself to a higher rank after he had started his own private army, and that was because he was qualified to be a major and to promote anyone below him up to his rank. Unless he had some way of being certified as having the skills and knowledge to be of a higher rank, he would be kidding himself if he was to take on a rank he couldn't be certain he was qualified for.

Buck Conroy, on the other hand, had not gotten beyond private first class, had not passed selection when he had tried for Green Berets (you need people skills for Green Berets, Buck had displayed no such skills and zero maturity, and that was something his own green berets had mentioned right when he had first started), and Harman could see familiar faces that had appeared next to Conroy in magazine articles and in Conroy's magazine, and was further tempted to shoot Conroy.

"There'll be time for that later, mean time, beer and snacks in that hanger over there," Buck pointed over to one of the hangers on the small airfield.

Harman looked where Buck was pointing, and then asked "What about sleeping areas? Same building?"

"Nah, the one to the left," said Buck.

"Understood, anything else?"

"Nah, that's all, you can get on over there," said Buck.

"Sir," acknowledged Harman as he saluted and turned away, he waved his men to follow him as he headed over to the sleeping hanger.

He also waved for Waldo to follow him.

"I take it you're not impressed with Buck Conroy," said Waldo as he followed.

"To say the least, he couldn't make E2, he's certainly not O10 material, you want your operations to succeed, you're going to have to use your authority as our employer to supersede his and follow my advice," said Harman, "I dread to think what his officer corps is like," Harman added with a shudder.

"Okay, but how do I know you're not falsifying your credentials?" asked Waldo.

"You have contacts inside the US DOJ?" asked Harman.

"Yes," said Waldo.

"You should have my war record, now I'm a fugitive, it should be on every BOLO in every precinct in the US or Interpol member states," said Harman.

"Okay, fair enough, to be honest, my orders to hire you came from higher up," said Waldo.

"Okay, well, if your higher ups don't want to reveal themselves, that's fine, I've worked under such conditions before, and I understand the paranoia that goes with unlawful operations. But I do insist on full operational intel and would like to start getting my head in the game as soon as possible, and I'd like to get my green berets in charge of training up anyone Buck hasn't unrealistically promoted over us as soon as possible.

"Like I said before, I like having a reputation for victory, and that'll be a lot easier to achieve if I'm not having to carry Buck's dead weight with me, and using people for cannon fodder is bad for morale and subsequently performance, so, please get me maps and start rotating his men through my command as early as possible."

"Okay," said Waldo as he left.

Waldo entered his office in the administration building attached to the control tower.

"I see Harman's people have arrived," said Valerie, one of the proxies.

Waldo startled and looked up to the ceiling where she had attached herself. "Yeah, and I really wish you wouldn't do that. I also had the mine set up where you specified, what do I tell Roberts regarding your boss? He's likely to walk if he senses we're messing him around or throwing him and his forces into a suicide mission."

"Well, you might as well fill him in then," said Valerie.

"Okay. Where's Sal? Just you two usually show up together," said Waldo.

"Intangible SEAL turned out to be a problem, she'll be fine," said Valerie as she lowered herself from her ceiling. She left the building and headed off.

[Scene Separator]

Daria tightened the sway braces on the last bomb and walked around the aircraft, checking that none of the bombs could move around. The load out included four triple racks that carried 12 bombs each, the confinement mist bombs didn't really need to be that big, they were half the length of a Mk81, same diameter, way less the weight, the remaining two hard points were taken up by the biggest drop tanks Daria could take off with.

Bombs were essentially fibreglass shells that the fuse would fit into, fuses were basic proximity fuses, no need for the bomb itself to have any explosive components, the way the bomb was constructed, the shock wave from the fuse would be sufficient to shred the shell and disperse the confinement mist. Bombs looked similar to any normal bomb except they were grey with a violet band around the nose. Most the Legion ordnance was that way, incapacitating, they also had HARMs and some air-air weapons, that was about as close as they came to conventional ammunition.

That complete, she checked off the box on the form and then started the pre-flight check.

Brittany had recruited Fran, who was staying at Xavier's place, to assist her in bugging the possibly corrupt officials in Columbia.

Basically the two of them would run to all the offices, Brittany would hide Fran as Fran shrinks the pair of them under doors and into phones and other systems, and it would suddenly become a lot easier to locate anyone that receives a call from any of these individuals.

[Scene Separator]

Daria entered the conference room again.

"Aircraft's just about ready," said Daria, "I'm thinking I super cruise at 70 angels direct most of the way and then drop to floor hugging level just before I hit Venezuela, I should be able to fly there and back and I should have a total of a minute of burner time before bingo, a further half minute if I want to get to a US airfield, Jodie leaves about an hour after I do, she should catch up just as I enter Columbia, sound good?"

"Yeah," said Jane.

"Then I get everyone to the ground," said Betty.

"And I cook any radar that switches on," said Jodie.

"Want some coffee? I made a fresh pot," said Jane.

"Piss off," said Daria, she then turned and left saying "See you in the battle space."

[Scene Separator]

Daria powered up the aircraft, went through the post-start up list, and then Stacy signalled for Daria to check the master arm was off.

Daria did this and signalled back that it was off.

Stacy and Charles went through the stray voltage checks, and eventually they got to arming the bombs.

Eventually Stacy signalled that the aircraft was fully armed and that Charles was now clear.

It was time to go.

[Scene Separator]

Tiffany finally gave up on salvaging the sat phone from the wreckage. Tiffany had a device that would allow her to call for a ride, but anything more than calling for a ride would have to be done over a secure satellite phone, and that could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands. She had found bits of a case, but she doubted she could find enough parts of it to piece it back together again (her intangibility powers allowed her to weld things just be phasing them through each other), so that was definitely not an option.

Helo pilots are trained to hover 2ft off the ground so that they don't land on a mine, and yet this helo seemed to have landed on a mine.

Tiffany was going to board the helo when it arrived and report in, the rest of her team was gone, the enemy had telekinetics working for them, she needed a replacement team.

So, she's waiting at the edge of the field, Helo's inbound, it's just emerged over the trees lining the opening in the forest, and suddenly there's this blast from the ground and the helo's a flaming holy wreck with no rotor blades attached.

How many of these mines were there?

Tiffany checked the rest of the clearing.

No other bombs.

That bomb would have posed a hazard wherever it was placed, the rocks were the size of melons, that's a much higher terminal velocity than what you get with even gravel or railway ballast.

But this bomb had been exactly under the flight path.

This bothered Tiffany deeply.

It occurred to her that she should try to locate the remains of the fuse.

She wasn't sure what it would tell her, but it seemed important to her to sort this out.

[Scene Separator]

"Sandman Gizmo, comm check, over," said Jodie.

"Gizmo Sandman, you're five by five, time on target five minutes, altitude five cherubs AGL," said Daria.

"Sandman Gizmo, have that, I'm listening for threats," said Jodie.

Jodie could operate both the _Gridrunner_ and the sensors simultaneously while also targeting the Masers at any threat.

Only problem was she needed to be at considerable altitude to give any kind of cover, and she would also need to dive a lot of the time because the Masers could only skew their effects by so far. Above all, that means getting subsonic, and the Gridrunner really didn't like being subsonic at 80 angels. Jodie would have perfectly good attitude control because the Gridrunner, being a vertical flight capable aircraft, had reaction control thrusters, she'd just have the glide slope of a mass concrete pad stone.

[Scene Separator]

Sally watched the time on her watch as she inserted her key into the master arm on the hell box.

"ARMING NOW! TAKE COVER!"

She waited about five seconds before she turned the key.

"FIRING IN TEN, NINE, EIGHT, SEEN, SIX, … FOUR, THREE, TWO, ONE," she then turned her head away, plugging her ear with one finger before flipping the switch.

[Scene Separator]

Jodie was looking down at her instruments trying to find a Radar system that wasn't part of a commercial or Columbian military establishment.

It didn't occur to her to look at the weather radar because weather is generally irrelevant to the _Gridrunner_, especially at this altitude.

Which meant she missed the huge lump of goo located right in their flight path.

The sudden deceleration caught everyone by surprise, luckily there was no reason for anyone to be standing up and they were all strapped in.

Unfortunately, "core engines dead, APU dead, control surfaces immobile, QUINN, NEED YOU TO PLUG IN!"

"Right," said Quinn. She pushed a button on the underside of her seat and two metal posts extended up from the armrests.

Quinn grabbed the posts and supplied power to the aircraft.

Jodie tried to spin the fans using Quinn's power in the motor. Quinn didn't have three hands, so the aircraft used an alternator to generate the three phase supply the motors would then use to drive the fans.

It wasn't working.

"Fans ineffective, I'm going to use the ion drive," said Jodie.

That wasn't working either.

"Ion drive ineffective, going to try to melt or burn through this gunk with the masers."

It then occurred to Jodie to mention all this to Daria.

"Mayday, mayday, mayday, Gizmo's in freefall, no attitude control, attempting to burn through with masers."

[Scene Separator]

"Gizmo Sandman, have that, diverting to safe area, over" responded Daria as she turned around.

Suddenly the AAA and SAM lights illuminated.

"Oh cock."

[Scene Separator]

"Not working," said Jodie, she then turned off the Masers and said "WE'RE AT THIRTY ANGELS, QUINN JANE MACK AND BETTY, GET OUT THERE AND CLEAR THAT CRAP OFF OUR AIRCRAFT!"

They got out of their seats and gathered together, putting on oxygen masks which had about 10 minutes of oxygen (several times what they would need anyway), and Betty teleported them outside.

[Scene Separator]

Daria was running out of decoys. She was turning hard to strafe as many of the SAM and triple A sites as possible before she completely ran out.

If she could clear at least this part of this valley of EAD then she wouldn't need to use up any more of her decoys, she could then start working outwards from this valley, popping up over the ridge just long enough to strafe a position and ducking back down before the enemy could respond.

[Scene Separator]

They cleared most of the material off the aircraft, Jodie now had dynamic flight control surfaces to call upon, Jodie used them to maintain the maximum AOA she could without stalling, that just left the engines, Jane positioned them behind the aircraft and Quinn started burning through the goo that had somehow enveloped the entire aircraft.

They would need the fans to be free to move in order to employ the reaction control thrusters, and that just was not happening, so Quinn was just going to clear out the exhaust barrels so the ion drive would become available.

As soon as Quinn completed one exhaust barrel, Mack got inside and cleared the way up to the ramjet doors, allowing the ion jets to draw air from the front.

Eventually Quinn had completed her work on the second engine and Betty beamed her in, Mack entered the other exhaust barrel and cleared the ramjet ducts out, and then he got clear and Betty teleported him back inside.

Quinn was seated and supplying power, Jodie tried the ion thrusters again.

It worked.

Jodie levelled out and climbed hard.

SAM and AAA lights lit up.

[Scene Separator]

Daria strafed another SAM site and ducked down again.

She had three more outstanding on that side.

The AI light lit up.

"WHAT???"

[Scene Separator]

"I think that was confinement mist," said Quinn.

"I concur," said Jodie.

"Gizmo Sandman, bandit, bandit."

"Christ," said Betty.

"Sandman Gizmo, have that," said Jodie, she inverted the aircraft and located Daria.

"Atoll Atoll,"

Jodie saw a trail of smoke and located the aircraft that had launched the missile. She wasn't getting any real radar echo off of it, but inverting the radar picture gave the targeting picture a moving hole in the ground to lock on to.

She used the masers and a jet of flame shot out to top of the aircraft.

"Sandman Gizmo, splash one," said Jodie as she pulled out, they weren't capable of moving slow enough for Jodie to remain in a steep dive for very long.

[Scene Separator]

"Gizmo Sandman, have that," said Daria, she then noticed movement ahead of her.

She realised immediately it might be another enemy aircraft and turned at it. She couldn't acquire it on radar, but PFTs worked at the speed of light, and had a straight line trajectory, so all she had to do was get the reticule on the target and fire.

That she did.

"Gizmo Sandman, splash one," said Daria as she made to get back within the protection of the valley.

It was at this point that the RWR detected an AAA site almost directly under her.

Half a second later, about the only things that were working was the comm system and the ejector seat.

[Scene Separator]

"Mayday-mayday-mayday, Sandman ejecting."

"CRAP!" said Jodie, "WHAT THE SCREWING HELL'S GOING ON TODAY? BETTY, GET EVERYONE EXCEPT QUINN DOWN STAIRS AND RETRIEVE DARIA!"

"BOSS!" Acknowledge Betty as he and everyone got up again and they all teleported down.

[Scene Separator]

Daria ditched her parachute in favour of her flight ring.

Realising she was vulnerable to snipers and AAA, she dropped below the forest canopy and drew her PFT M2, once she landed she removed her helmet.

'Gizmo Sandman, receiving, over?' thought cast Daria through the ring.

'Sandman Gizmo, rescue's in progress, stay below the canopy, you're in danger from snipers and AAA, over.'

'Really? Hadn't thought of that,' thought Daria without thought casting, she simply replied 'Gizmo Sandman, have that, landing now, over.'

'Sandman and Gizmo from Betty, our superpowers are being suppressed, we're no longer super powered, over.'

'Betty Gizmo, have that, searching now.'

'All Call signs from Sandman, converge on crash, over,' said Daria.

[Scene Separator]

Harman and his men advanced on the ridge that Daria had been hiding behind.

Three of Conroy's fire teams were on his left flank, and they were moving too fast.

"HEY!" shouted Harman.

When they looked back, he signalled for them to form a line left of him.

They looked off to his left, thinking he was pointing something out.

"You're moving too fast, are you even looking for trip wires?"

"Dude, we're dealing with abberents who lost their powers, they're lost."

Harman was tempted to just let them blunder into whatever trap lay ahead. 'Abberant', kinda like 'Freak', disrespectful and (probably inaccurately) implies mental incapacity, you disrespect your enemy at your own peril, the enemy may not underestimate you the way you underestimate them and like you, your enemy is playing to win.

He eventually decided "You know what? Go ahead, do what you want, I'll try to rescue you once I've subdued the Legionnaires, just don't make them use lethal force."

This was one of the reasons Harman wanted to train up Conroy's men, the problem was that they didn't have the time, their advisor had told them this attack was imminent and they had to be fielded right now.

The Cartel had the advantage right now, but that could change in an instant if they screwed up, Harman had cautioned everyone to look out and that the Legion had been trained by a Marine Special Forces Officer, and Conroy went ahead and called Harman a Gloom and Doom monger, and gave everyone an idiotic pep talk. The two metas, Val and Sal, weren't impressed either. They did have a very good plan to start off with though, Harman couldn't think of any way to improve upon it beyond postponing it to train everyone else up (which hadn't been an option), which made Harman wonder about their boss, was he or she former or current military?

All Harman could do was exactly what he said he didn't want to do: Use the idiots as cannon fodder. It was going to happen either way.

He signalled for his men to form a line along his 1:30 vector, that should get them into position to hit the legion when they respond to Buck's idiots.

[Scene Separator]

After setting up the trip wire, Betty, Sandi, and Jane brought their ends to Daria and they threaded them through the ring and tied them to individual rocks, she then tied them to the loop in the string holding the rock that would trigger the trap.

They then moved on, careful not to tread on the trip wire.

"How much brown string do we have left?" asked Betty.

"Enough for two more, then we'll have to rig the devices for command detonation, that's going to fix our own movements," said Daria as she picked up one of the remaining bombs.

"I hate that," said Betty.

[Scene Separator]

Three Cartel members were guarding one of the metajammers.

They were set up to repel any approaching Legionnaires.

They had spent hours setting up dangle traps.

They had also had to bury the device and the generator in order to hide it from the _Gridrunner's_ radar system.

They had also set up their gun positions with mirrors rather than sand bags, that turned out to be a really effective means of camouflage, until they opened up with their MG42s, they would be perfectly concealed.

They shouldn't have been so easily spotted, but they got knocked out anyway.

When they woke up, they were tied up and gagged with their own socks. Actually, it was each other's socks. They no longer heard the generator.

A woman dressed for jungle warfare stood over them, holding a PFT M4.

"Took your time waking up," said the woman, "one of you will be coming with me, we're going to shut down every one of these metajammers or I spend all day torturing the crap out of you, the sooner you comply, the less pain you'll feel."

She approached one and removed his gag.

"Deal?" she asked.

"What do you know about torture? You're nothing like my boss, as you'll find out when we have you in our custody."

"Okay," said the woman as she stuffed the gag back into his mouth.

She then dragged him out and tied his feet to a 'technical', a truck with a 12.5mm machine gun on it.

She then started it and slowly drove on.

Feeling the ground moving under him, he realised that if she moved at a mere 10mph, he'd break ribs, his arms, his hands would be a bony pulpy mess, his pelvis, his skull.

She stopped and got out.

She removed the gag again and asked "Scared yet?"

He wasn't quite ready to admit he was, and said "You're not used to the kind of brutality of this country, you grew up in America, where-"

The women pushed the gag back into his mouth and throttled him, calmly saying "your assumptions are based on a false premise about my character and my life experiences, two of my more recent experiences being seeing the rest of my fire team slaughtered and seeing a Legion jet being splashed by the same forces that killed my team, and I have friends in the Legion, friends I care deeply about. friends you are currently endangering. I am not happy."

The woman got back in the truck and started driving again, accelerating hard.

He had to force himself to hold his head up as she drove a little faster this time, he felt a couple of rocks in the path break three of his fingers and another rock dislodged his elbow cap, he pissed himself as the bends in the road pulled him off to the side where the trees lived, forcing him to push his arms out to the side to keep from rolling face down. He pissed himself as the pain from his arms colliding with the trees flooded his senses with pain.

The woman stopped again and got out again.

Panic was setting in now.

She removed the gag, saying "if you die, I'll return you to your buddies after a long drive around and hook one of them up. There'll be no way to tell how many of your injuries are pre mortem or post mortem, therefore no way to tell how long it took for you to die."

She waited about twenty seconds before moving to push the gag back in.

"OKAY! I'LL HELP YOU!"

"Good choice," she said as she produced a map.

[Scene Separator]

Harman heard an explosion.

He then saw the air ahead fill with a mist that seemed to be pouring down from above and then solidify.

"Yep." He then pressed the talk button on his earpiece and said "All call signs from Brown Recluse Zero One alpha, be advised, the Legion have retrieved the bombs off their fighter bomber, so pay attention to everything around you, over."

[Scene Separator]

The Legionnaires were set up in a defensive pattern.

Once all the bombs had been used, they would need to counterattack for their own safety, that was the reason they didn't want to be pinned down, but until Jodie could locate and knock out the metajammers, they couldn't do anything else.

Each Legionnaire had a string to pull to set off the bomb, the bombs had been set up in the trees and the strings were tied to the remains of the arming wires, as soon as the wires leave the proximity fuses, they arm with the ground well within the range within which the fuse is set to detonate.

'Gizmo, Sandman, how's it going, over?'

'Sandman Gizmo, no joy, I am making good on my previous commitment on SEAD, over.'

'Have that, over' said Daria.

They heard movement to their east.

That was Sandi's field of fire.

Sandi was in semiautomatic mode, she tapped off a few shots.

Eventually she heard someone fall over.

She then heard something in Spanish.

She then started seeing muzzle flashes and pulled back behind the tree she was using. There were at least ten people in her field of fire, she considered that enough to justify the bomb.

She pulled the string and heard the explosion.

She then heard a load more Spanish dialogue and some movement.

She leaned around her tree to try to locate anyone not within the reach of the confinement mist cloud.

She shot four people and advanced further.

Two more advanced into Daria's field of fire and the remaining two stopped when they saw their friends drop and opened fire.

Luckily their shots were way too high while Sandi aimed at them and knocked them out.

Everyone else's Field Of Fire filled up fairly quickly after that.

'All call signs from Gizmo, I'm guessing, but I think if you peel south west, that should take you clear of their kill zone sooner, when you're ready, I'll strafe ahead of you with my masers, bit of luck, feeling their flesh cook should make them run like screw and reveal them to you,' said Jodie.

'Gizmo Sandman, have that,' said Daria.

The last bomb was eventually set off.

'Gizmo Sandman, ready to move, you have control,' said Daria.

'Gizmo Sandi, what's your supposition based on, over?'

'They seem to have a precog, they predicted movements we didn't know we were going to make until we got here, time on target five seconds,' said Jodie.

"Sandi, prepare to move," said Daria.

At one second, Daria said "MOVE" as she fired off level three shots in skip mode, the mode would allow her to target individuals she sees, but would also harass their senses with shock waves.

The legionnaires peeled south west as planned.

[Scene Separator]

The alarming warmth in his skin had panicked Harman into retreating south, he knew that only two things caused such a sensation, ionising radiation, and microwave radiation, and neither was particularly good. The _Mk 5 Gridrunners_ had masers, and apparently that confinement mist bomb had not been as effective as they would have liked.

The instant that sensation faded, he stopped.

"All Brown Recluses from zero one alpha, halt and set ambush."

He also set himself up in wait.

He had heard a number of explosions ahead of him, that had to mean they were close to where the Legionnaires ad set up their defence.

There was no way to sense people with radar through foliage, so the pilot in the _Gridrunner_ HAD to have been clearing the way.

The Legion were trying to break out of the kill zone.

The massive enemy forces on the Legion's tail would be prompting them to run fast.

"Zero One Alpha from Zero Four, have two X-rays in view, two more approaching, they should appear in front of you in the next 20 seconds, over."

"Zero Four from Zero One Alpha, have that, all _Brown Recluses_ stand by to open fire."

This was going to work, provided no screw ups, and Harman had the utmost confidence in the marksmanship of his people and their discipline.

"Stand by."

He saw movement at his two o'clock, Zero Three should have them.

"Stand by."

He remained perfectly still. Whatever his camouflage was like any movement on his part would destroy any advantage he had.

"Stand by."

Two more legionnaires appeared ahead of him, Mack and Stacy. Zero Two could have those.

"Stand By."

Next two to appear were Daria and Sandi, these two were his, he lined his reticule up on Daria, Sandi was facing away, he could guarantee Daria would die, Sandi might acquire him the instant he opened fire, his weapon was suppressed in order to delay discovery, suppressors were essential in jungle warfare, your field of view is extremely limited, so you don't know where the enemy that'll hear you is.

Daria and Sandi stopped.

"F-"

Daria and Sandi both turned and knocked him out.

[Scene Separator]

'Tiffany, Daria, do you need extraction?' Thought cast Daria.

'Yes please,' thought Tiffany.

A couple of seconds later, Betty appeared next to her, grabbed her, and then they were both on the _Gridrunner Mk 5_.

Just about all the seats were now occupied by unconscious mercenaries.

Betty disappeared again and reappeared with another bound up mercenary.

Sandi emerged from the rear compartment and said "Hey Tiffany, we're just about done grabbing those mercenaries, anywhere we can drop you off?"

"There's a carrier at seventy-fourteen-twelve west, fourteen-forty five-two north, I've been trying to return there for the last day now."

"Anyone else with you?"

Tiffany eventually said "yes."

Sandi asked "any injuries?"

Tiffany eventually said "they're dead."

"Crap, sorry to hear that."

"Well, you're not dead," said Tiffany.

Eventually Betty and Daria appeared in the aircraft. Betty disappeared again.

"Two outstanding, they're the ones in the fighters, they're within the coverage of the remaining superpower jammers, so we're going to take the ones we've got here to prison," said Daria.

Betty reappeared with Mack and Jane and disappeared again.

"Pretty good considering how we started," said Daria, "that was pretty tight though, a hundred milliseconds later, half of us would have been dead, the other half probably would have been dead alongside."

Betty reappeared with Stacy and Julia and disappeared again.

Tiffany glared at Harman, stepping close to him and leaning against the seat in front of him.

Betty reappeared with Charles and said "That's everyone."

Jodie said "Okay, returning to base."

Harman woke up.

"Hello, Harman," said Tiffany.

"Crap," said Harman.

"Yeah, crap, and you're cranium deep in it. … There are two girls with cat ear like horns poking out their heads, they have telekinetic powers, have you encountered them?"

"Do I get time off if I tell you?" asked Harman.

"I have a better prise," said Tiffany.

Tiffany then reached into his chest. Harman looked alarmed.

"Who are they?" asked Tiffany.

Harman didn't respond.

Jane asked "Tiffany, what are you doing?"

Tiffany didn't answer and Harman felt a pressure build in his heart, as if it was having to work harder to beat.

The lower half of his body started to feel cold.

"What did they do to you?" asked Harman.

"They killed my team, Harman, are they worth possible tissue necrosis?"

"TIFFANY!" shouted Jane.

"Tiffany, I have to agree with Jane, ease up, this is something for him to plea bargain for, okay?" said Daria.

"Daria, Jane, button it!" said Tiffany, "those two telekinetics are a threat to SOCOM operations, and so is that precog."

"I can't help you," said Harman.

"YOU'RE NOT WORKING FOR A STATE, YOU'RE WORKING FOR A DRUG CARTEL, THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PROTECTING?" asked Tiffany.

"My reputation," said Harman.

Tiffany pulled on the blood vessel she was pinching shut and said "YOU FEEL THAT? ALL I HAVE TO DO IS TUG JUST A LITTLE HARDER AND YOU ARE DEAD!"

"We all go through the escape and evasion exercise in one form or another," said Harman, "your menaces are irrelevant."

Tiffany scowled and pulled down hard.

Betty appeared and disappeared with Harman almost instantly.

"NO!" yelled Tiffany as she ran through Daria to the back of the aircraft.

She didn't find him there.

She turned to Daria and said "HE NEARLY KILLED YOU! WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?"

Daria and Jane shared the same look of annoyance.

"THAT'S THE THANKS I GET? HOW DO YOU THINK I LOCATED THOSE JAMMING BEACONS? YOU SAID SO YOURSELF YOU WERE A TENTH OF A SECOND FROM BEING KILLED BY THAT RAT BASTARD!"

Ten seconds later, Betty reappeared.

"He has a slight arrhythmia, but the Corpsman said he'll live."

Tiffany went for the nearest prisoner.

Betty disappeared, reappeared behind Tiffany and then they both disappeared.

[Scene Separator]

"WHERE IS HE?" asked Tiffany as she started running through the bulkheads of the destroyer.

A US Marine private who had been standing there drew his gun and asked "WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?"

"Relax, I'm NATO affiliated. Can't tell you much beyond that as it's compartmentalised, sorry," said Betty.

Tiffany reappeared saying "HE'S NOT HERE!"

"YOU THINK I'D TAKE YOU TO HIM?" asked Betty.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" said Tiffany as she went for him.

Betty teleported to a position four metres behind Tiffany along the corridor.

Tiffany reached into the marine standing there, alarming the private.

Betty nodded saying "you'd kill your own to pressure me to talk?"

Eventually Tiffany looked at the marine private and slowly withdrew her hand.

Other marines appeared from the ends of the corridor, all drawing their guns and pointing them at the intruders, shouting at them to show their hands.

When they stopped, Betty said "If you're calm now, I'll teleport you to the tower. We're not going anywhere near the aircraft, I can't trust you not to try to kill any of the other prisoners. I'm sorry you lost your mates in action, but that comes with the territory, YOU CAN NOT LOSE CONTROL LIKE THAT! … NOT … EVER!"

Eventually Tiffany walked over to Betty.

She turned away from him, and he stepped forward and touched her back.

They appeared in a Legion Tower conference room.

They stood in silence for a couple of minutes.

Eventually Tiffany said "I guess I'd better not be here when they get back."

"I could talk to them, try to calm them down, but I think you're out of the reserves too," said Betty.

"Why the hell couldn't they have let me kill him?" asked Tiffany.

"LEO doctrine: Protect your prisoner," said Betty.

Tiffany chuckled for a few seconds and said "I wonder if I could have screwed things up any worse? I don't think I could, but did I miss anything?"

Betty said "I don't think I can help you any more. … I'm going to try to smooth things over. … You going to be okay?"

Tiffany said "No … … go on."

Betty eventually teleported out.

Tiffany said to herself "Well, at least I settled things between Daria and Jane."

About a minute later, Tiffany walked to the nearest elevator.

[Scene Separator]

"YOU SENSED IT, SHE WAS GOING TO KILL HIM!" said Jane.

"YEAH, BUT THAT WAS IN AN INTERROGATION, I'M TALKING ABOUT COMBAT SURVIVAL," replied Daria.

"WHAT HAS COMBAT SURVIVAL GOT TO DO WITH PRISONER ABUSE?" asked Jane.

"WHAT HAS PRISONER ABUSE GOT TO DO WITH COMBAT SURVIVAL?" asked Daria.

As Jane and Daria relaxed into an argument, Betty turned to Stacy and said "I know Tiffany's out of the reserves too, and you got procedure to follow, any reason you can't remain on friendly terms with her?"

"Friendly terms? Betty, she attempted murder, and I'm guessing here, but that ALSO goes against the SEAL manual, doesn't it?" replied Stacy.

" … … A little," admitted Betty.

"WELL THEN WHY SHOULD I BE HER FRIEND AT ALL?" asked Stacy.

"Because if several Legionnaires got killed in front of you and the guy who did it ended up in your custody, you'd be tempted too, would you not?" asked Betty.

"NO EXCUSE!"

"I KNOW!"

"SO WHAT SHOULD I DO?"

Betty thought about it. Eventually he said "Help her." He then looked at the prisoners sat all around them and said "Come on," as he walked to the cockpit.

[Scene Separator]

Tiffany stepped off the elevator on the basement floor of the Legion Annex, her bags in tow, and met Stacy.

"I'd have been out of here sooner, but I had to rent a trailer," said Tiffany as she continued on to her car.

"Betty talked to me about you," said Stacy.

"Improve your mood any?" asked Tiffany.

"Daria's testimony plus the corpsman on the aircraft carrier would be sufficient to put you away. Even received a phone call from your CO talking about starting a JAGNAV investigation into your attempt to murder Retired Major Harman Roberts."

"Crap," said Tiffany.

"Indeed," said Stacy. "I managed to get it halted. You're valuable enough that as long as you receive counselling from an approved shrink and complete the course of treatment, the investigation remains frozen. If it ever thaws, there's enough to secure a conviction, and you're too much of a security risk for Leavenworth, so … "

"Right," said Tiffany. The other places she might end up include 'The John' (as in 'Smells like a') in Puerto Rico, tropics and skimping on the sewage system in favour of the security measures made it smell like an open sewer, 'The Kiln' in Arizona, the luxury that got cut there was decent air conditioning, and 'The Well' in Alaska, this facility was deep underground and drew energy off a geothermal system, so heat wasn't a problem, heating things was usually easier than cooling it. That was the most secure metahuman prison, that's where she'd be serving out her sentence if she ever received one.

Stacy eventually said "Daria seemed to sympathise with you for some reason, hid by her piss poor attempt to resemble a logical Vulcan, but she seemed to be arguing against Jane on policy to distract Jane from your misdeed."

"I suppose it would be inappropriate to offer my gratitude for her sentiments," said Tiffany.

"That's Daria for you," said Stacy.

Tiffany eventually asked "Is it likely I'll ever be welcome if I show up for Christmas or birthdays or whatever?"

"We'll see," said Stacy.

"Right. … Bye."

Tiffany continued on to her car and packed the remaining cases in her trailer.

She then sat in her car and turned the power on.

She programmed the satellite navigation system with the post code for a storage company so she could stick her kit somewhere safe while she decided where she would …

…

…

…

She sat back and tried to work out why she was even crying, it's not like she had been back that often since she had enlisted, let alone after she passed selection for SEAL.

Stupid emotions.

Stupid anger management issues.

How the fornicate did that even start anyway?

Eventually the tears stopped flowing and Tiffany did up her seatbelt.

She started the engine and looked around, pressing the clutch down and selecting 1st.

She released the handbrake and set off, turning towards the car park exit. The device controlling the electromagnetically actuated block of concrete recognised her vehicle and the block dropped into the road, letting her out.

She emerged from the tunnel and was on her way to her new home.

But first she had to pull over at the nearest lay by so that her damn tear ducts could finish discharging AGAIN!

Not that she was in any danger from anything she might collide with, her ability had developed to the point where she could make the car and trailer intangible, but other drivers she phased through would likely kill themselves after they enter what they think is a collision. Stacy was right about one thing: Tiffany needed a shrink.

[Scene Separator]

Sal and Val entered the airport's administration building and found themselves surrounded by a number of very irate gangsters, Waldo among them.

"What happened?" asked Val, her tone showing annoyance rather than fear.

"We lost," said Waldo.

"How?" asked Sal.

"Someone took out our metajammers," said Waldo.

"How'd that happen?" asked Val.

"Maybe someone told that SEAL where they were," said Waldo.

"Like that sentry who ran off with your _technical_ after his buddies saw him being dragged off by aforementioned SEAL?" asked Sal.

"No way would one of our people betray us like that," said Waldo, "they're too aware of how we deal with traitors."

This was a moment when both Diclonii felt like they needed an aspirin.

"You, along with the rest of the screwing planet, do not have a monopoly on torture," Val finally said.

"Yeah? Maybe you'll have a different view on the matter shortly before we kill you," said Waldo.

"That's a statement of intent to detain and attack us, is it?" asked Sal.

Both Diclonii then realised that they couldn't use their vectors. The look of annoyance on their faces was apparently apparent to Waldo because he said "We didn't tell you about that jammer, did we."

"No, you didn't," said Val.

The gangsters closed in on them, prompting Val and Sal to roll their eyes in disdain.

[Scene Separator]

Two minutes later.

[Scene Separator]

"You know how the Legion had a Force Recon Marine train them?" asked Val.

"Nes?" asked Waldo, barely breathing through his mouth as blood from his nose poured down his throat.

"So did we, we didn't tell you about that, did we?" asked Sal.

"Oh, oou iii-and," replied Waldo.

Sal and Val then shot him with the guns they had captured.

They looked around the room full of dead cartel members.

Val then pulled her satellite phone.

She dialled her boss.

"Hi Val, just saw Harman's mercenaries in Leavenworth, what happened?"

"That screwing SEAL turned off all the jammers, and Waldo blamed us," said Val, "foresee any business yet?"

"No, just Harman and his people. Legion like capturing those guys, maybe we can use that to get the Legion out our way, got enough money to return to the States?"

"Think so," said Val.

"Okay, get to Platte in Missouri, I'll see if I can focus my visions on the clink and see if I can have a plan for you," said their employer.

"Right boss," said Val before she hung up and said "Platte, Missouri."

"Okay," said Sal.

They wouldn't go direct, that was never a good idea, same with going together.

[Scene Separator]

End


	5. Preemptive Counterattack

Constraints: Follows 'The Known Future'.

Synopsis: Tiffany is tasked with both the search for the Diclonii that she wants to kill and the rehabilitation of herself.

Pre-emptive counterattack.

Content: Violence, nudity, stuff you shouldn't try at home, good guys doing bad things.

Legal: X-Men = MTV, Daria = Warner Bros, Legion Of Superheroes = Manga, Elfen Lied = Warner Bros, Legion Of Lawndale Heroes = Roentgen and Brother Grimace. … … … Have I got that right?

[Change Of Scenery]

Lieutenant Ian Johnston sat on his bunk, reading the transcript from his police interview.

His JAG council had said there was no way to appeal his way out of it, but that didn't mean necessarily that he had no means of appeal, rape was supposed to be difficult to prove, so he should in theory have been able to get away with it.

Of course his first victim following police advice and reporting the incident wasn't exactly helpful. He heard a crack in the floor and looked down to see a hole had appeared in the cell floor.

An endoscope poked through and looked around.

"Hi there, do you know which cell Harman Roberts is in?" asked a female voice.

"You wish to extract him?"

"Yes, and you can come too, we could use the diversion anyway," said the female voice.

"How long until you're ready?" asked Ian.

"We'll be ready soon," said the female voice.

"Okay, just one more thing."

"Yeah?"

"Let me take you out to celebrate my newfound freedom. To show my appreciation."

"Expensive meal, with an expensive wine?"

"Yeah."

"Laced with rohypnol or GHB?"

'How'd she know?' he thought. He then feigned offence.

"Don't give me that, you're transparent as fuck. I'm glad you're a rapist, that'll make the Marshals desperate to find you. Bonus points if you're also a serial killer. I get you and everyone else in the clink out, you all fuck off, linger or show up near us or Harman's crew again, and you die. Understood?"

" … Understood," said Ian.

"Good. We'll provide cash, clothes and fake ID, all you have to do is wait for an exit to materialise, and make like a tree when it does, anything else?"

"No."

"Good night."

The endoscope disappeared and the hole was plugged by the piece of concrete that had been removed.

[Change Of Scenery]

"Tiffany?"

Tiffany looked over to the Commander.

She had to figure out a way to get through this situation.

Tiffany was a SEAL, she supposedly lived for difficult, but some difficulties are more equal than others.

She formulated a response and, hope in her heart, deployed it.

"It's not any one thing, you know, it's a whole bunch of things, and sometimes it all just boils over."

The Commander nodded, smiling, saying "yeah, I know what you mean … It's the exact thing I suggested right at the start of the session."

Tiffany grabbed the top of her chair back and pressed her head against the chair back as a means to dissipate her frustration.

"I'm sorry, but every time you ask a question, my mind turns to crap, I mean, my future depends on getting my temper under control, and that depends on remembering things so long past … … What do I do?"

"Let loose, rant, rave, curse what you feel wronged by, I need to know how your mind works before we can even plan anything, we go much longer like this and I'll have no choice but to declare mission failure," said the Commander. He didn't need to explain the consequences of that, this was something that got mentioned between them the first session they had.

He was also privy to her personal file, and mission details describing what she had been tasked with and what had happened on her missions. She was a valuable asset, most his patients were valuable assets, but they, just like Tiffany, wanted to maintain control, wanted to look good in the eyes of their superiors. The fact was that Tiffany's CO would never hear the intimate second by second details or even of the important details that Tiffany would reveal, all he would hear is that Tiffany was fit for duty or not fit for duty, but there was a strong possibility that Tiffany would not open up, not give him the information he needs to guide her through her issues, and she would spend a couple of decades doing nothing for herself or for her country in The Well.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany entered the Admiral's office and stood to attention. "Here as ordered, Sir."

"Stand easy," said the Admiral.

As soon as Tiffany stood at ease, he asked her "How's counselling going?"

"I'm hopeful," said Tiffany, debating whether or not to tack on 'that I'll be the husband, not the wife of my cell'.

"Don't look it," replied her Admiral.

"I just don't know what to do in those sessions," said Tiffany.

"Right. Well, while I still have you, I have a job for you, I'm assigning you TAD to SHIELD under agent Maximoff, they need you to help hunt down the two metas that killed your team, and I want said Metas banged up or dead, within the rules of war of course."

"Of course sir," said Tiffany. She was please she could be a part of this, but 'Within the rules of war of course' tacked onto the end of that sentence reminded her of how little trust he had in her.

"All expenses will be repaid following conclusion of your participation of the mission, be in Bayville International at 15:25 tomorrow, Maximoff will meet you there, dismissed."

[Change Of Scenery]

Brittany waited for Fran to finish whatever she was doing inside the computer. There were TOO MANY possibilities, if this guess didn't work, she would have to declare mission failure and figure out another way to prepare for the re-emergence of the metas that had been assisting that drug cartel.

This far into the 21st century and there were STILL airports with ABSOLUTELY NO INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SYSTEMS, NOT EVEN A PERSONAL COMPUTER IN THE MANAGERS OFFICE!

This is why they ended up guessing, they had asked airport officials, using fake Interpol IDs, but those officials were lying and Brittany and Fran had no powers of arrest because they were outside their jurisdiction and were lying about their affiliations, so no means to prosecute for averting the course of justice.

Fran emerged from the back of the computer and grew big enough to be audible, she told Brittany "try it now."

Brittany clocked the Login button and it admitted her even though the username and password boxes were blank. She searched through the visual logs of passengers admitted since the time of the contact and found "Nothing."

"Now what?" asked Fran.

"Go home and anticipate," said Brittany.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany picked up her luggage and she heard a woman behind her say "You're three minutes early."

Glancing at the clock on the wall, she noted the time was indeed 15:22:13. "Sorry about that, I'll try to be less early in future. Beyond 'Be here in three minutes,' do I have any other objectives?"

"Check the man accessible sewers near Bayville mall," said Agent Maximoff.

"For what?" asked Tiffany.

"You'll know it when you see it," said Maximoff.

"The sentence 'April Fool' writ large in faeces, for instance?" asked Tiffany.

"Next meeting will be at The Twisted Offspring, on the northern outskirts of Bayville, two days from now, 23:45."

"Understood," said Tiffany as she continued out the arrivals lounge.

[Change Of Scenery]

Torpid followed Callisto's hand signals as long as she was in view, but once she was out of view of Callisto, she was on her own. She silently advanced to the tunnel junction, and when she arrived, she saw the person, a woman with black hair, dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, slowly walking the sewers.

Torpid advanced on the woman, matching step in order to use the woman's movement through the brown water to mask her own.

As soon as Façade de-cloaked, that should indicate the woman's intention to an extent.

"Oh look, someone else," said the Woman.

"Who are you?" asked Façade.

"Tina Dandrel," replied the Woman, "you?"

"I'll ask the questions here," said Façade.

"And that means I can't?" asked the woman.

"What are you doing down here?" asked Façade.

"Looking for something," said the woman.

"What are you looking for?" asked Façade.

"I'll know when I see it," said the woman. Her tone showed irritation.

"Based on what?" asked Façade.

"Screwed if I know. How about you, what are you doing down here?"

"Asking the questions."

"You got any more?" asked the woman.

He didn't answer.

"Okay, well, I'm new in town, apparently I hear these tunnels are a point of interest … … … to, someone … Anything unique around here?"

"The DNA code of the local bacteria are going to be slightly different to that of the bacteria in the crap from where you're from," said Façade.

"Okay. … Screw it! You wouldn't happen to know a Wanda Maximoff would you?" asked the woman.

"Magneto's Daughter?" asked Façade, "why would she be down here?"

"She secretly harbours a scatological fetish?" suggested the woman.

"Or she has nowhere else to go," said Façade.

"Like you?" asked the woman.

"Ye- … "

"Don't recall seeing you on any BOLOs, but then maybe this is pre-emptive?" asked the woman.

Façade signalled for Torpid to attack.

Torpid advanced, gloves off, only for the woman to kick out and send her flying 10 metres along the tunnel. Torpid would have preferred to have struck concrete.

"Bad move," said Façade.

"You started it," said the woman.

"Did not," said Façade.

"Did too," said the woman.

Façade saw Spyke appear and continued "Did not, you trespassed on us, and you just struck out at one of us, so now we use whatever level of force we need to disable you."

Spyke took that as his cue to attack and he shot a quill at the woman.

The quill passed straight through the woman and struck the wall, it then started spinning and struck Façade across the eyes, causing Façade to jump back, losing all balance in his panic, he too landed in the faeces.

Turning to Spyke the woman said "this just gets weaker by the femto second, are you guys actually packing anything or can I just go where I like unchecked down here?"

"Okay, just WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING DOWN HERE?" asked Spyke.

"Ask one of your buddies to explain, if they're not too busy dying from leptospirosis or cholera," said the woman as she wandered off.

Spyke followed her as she walked along another tunnel.

[Change of Scenery]

As Tiffany left the tunnel where two apparent residents now lay shivering in the faeces, she mulled over how useful that conversation had been.

A group of mutants apparently lived in the Bayville sewers, they have no affiliation with SHIELD or they'd have been expecting her, might have briefed her, JUST WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE SUPPOSED TO FIND DOWN HERE?

Then she felt something move through her.

She saw nothing. It felt familiar.

She advanced to the next corner and saw a girl with pink hair, pink eyes and the remains of a pair of horns.

"Ah, well, that explains it then," said Tiffany.

"Explains what?" asked the girl. Her accent was slightly Japanese.

Tiffany head butted her and grabbed her as she fell, dragging her through the walls to the surface.

Finding herself in a warehouse, she proceeded to lift the girl over her shoulders and run.

[Change Of Scenery]

Lucy awoke feeling hung over.

Or was the nausea and head pain down to the fact that the last thing she remembered was this Chinese woman head butting her?

She also found her hands were immobile.

So were her ankles.

She turned her head and saw the woman sitting across the room from the bed underneath her.

Lucy tried reaching out with her vectors.

Her vectors didn't come.

"What the hell do you want?" growled Lucy.

"Information," said the woman.

"About what?"

"Two mutants, pink hair, pink eyes … horns … "

Lucy processed what the woman was saying and eventually settled on a response: "You moron."

The woman raised an eyebrow.

"Let me rephrase … … … Actually, on second thoughts, I stand by my first answer: … … YOU, … … MORON! … … WHAT THE HELL MAKES YOU THINK I KNOW OF OTHER DICLONII JUST BECAUSE I MYSELF AM A DICLONIUS?"

The woman said "because I was sent here."

"If I have to break out of these restraints or answer any more of your cryptic questions, I will make you wish you had answered me straight up," said Lucy.

The woman reached out and passed her hand through the wall behind her, she retrieved her hand, it was holding a can of ultra-cola, she opened it saying "might be faster if you just tell me what you know."

Lucy laughed and said "In my entire existence, I've only ever encountered two female diclonii, of those two, one's dead, 10% got digested by sewer rats, the other 90% is fish food, and the other IS PATHALOGICALLY INCAPABLE OF DRAWING THE KIND OF ATTENTION WHOEVER SENT YOU IS PAYING!"

"How's that?"

"The first one or the second one?"

"Both."

"One was packed with explosives, carried onto a bridge and blown up by remote, the other won't kill even to defend herself, and has zero ambition beyond pleasing whoever will board and feed her, okay? Are we done now?"

"We'll see," said the woman as she got up and left through the wall.

Lucy struggled some more and shouted "GAHHHH!" in frustration.

[Change Of Scenery]

"She's left the motel room," said Lucid.

"Just like that?" asked Callisto.

"We had no sight on her or Lucy for about half an hour, screw knows what she did to Lucy in that time," said Lucid.

"Worry about that later, Spyke, you and Lucid extract Lucy, Scaleface, watch our exit, Torpid, your hands might still work if she's intangible, until we know for sure, get in her way," said Callisto.

Lucid accompanied Spyke to the door, Spyke picked the lock with a thin quill and they snuck inside, Lucy remained silent as Spyke cut her restraints.

He and Lucid then turned their attention to the collar, Lucid glancing occasionally at the woman.

Once they had picked the lock on the collar, they left.

They reunited.

"That woman's on the phone in another motel room," said Lucid, he then recited the number she had dialled.

"Right," said Callisto, "Lucid, keep watching her, Lucy and anyone who that woman saw earlier, return to base-no, scratch that, hide out somewhere she won't already know about, Lucy, anything in your past, remember it fast, we may need to know about it. Go now. And don't pick your nose, they'll know."

As Lucy, Spyke, Façade and Torpid left, Callisto took up another position away from Lucid. Her hearing was sufficient that she could use that to hear where Lucid and that woman were. She could approach Lucid at any time and ask if she felt she needed to hear what he just saw immediately. She heard the woman swear and burst out the front door, she heard a noise consistent with the cranking of a selector switch on an 11.5mm handgun being cranked.

Callisto feigned interest in a bus timetable on a nearby bus stop as she listened to the woman swear again and run off.

She heard Lucid move to follow and maintained an appropriate stand-off.

Was that woman feigning or had her plan really gone tits up?

Callisto reviewed what Lucy had revealed about her past so far: A Japanese mad science firm had captured her and done a bunch of experiments on her, and other similar mutants. She broke out and sustained a GSW to the head from some kind of AP 12.5mm round, that split her personality for a while. Some kid took her and another Diclonius in. She then got engaged by the mad scientists private army, she kept dismembering them.

Then she got engaged by Mariko, total sociopath diclonius, Mariko beat the faeces out of Lucy, knocking a horn off, Apparently Mariko was then attacking Nana, when one of the mad scientists grew a conscience and somehow managed to relocate Mariko to an empty area, and explosives placed inside Mariko (to menace co-operation out of her) were set off. Someone less conscientious was then going to shoot Nana, but Lucy intervened, then Lucy got engaged again by more of these mercs, her other horn was shot off, following this Lucy elected to piss off, taking measures to draw the mad scientists away from the kid that had taken her in, and ultimately emigrated from Japan.

Hoping she had done enough to keep the mad scientists from returning to Nana and her hosts, Lucy had spent her life since moving through the United States, living off stolen goods and revenue, and she met The Morlocks, and settled here.

She had been pretty vague otherwise.

Callisto could tell Lucy wasn't telling them everything, but Callisto wasn't a cop or working on behalf of any law enforcement agency, so as long as Lucy didn't turn and screw them, she didn't care.

Now Lucy was apparently in danger, so Callisto needed this information in order to help Lucy, after all the assistance Lucy rendered the Morlocks, that was the least she could do.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany listened as the girl talked.

"There's a reason I've been holding things back," said Lucy, her voice was clearest because she was the one with the salazarium bug.

Tiffany had drawn a number of Salazarium bugs when she left the Navy base, and the Mk. 40 collar she drew from a SHIELD field office, texting them to drop it in a specific location while she was running around with Lucy draped across her shoulders.

She was never going to get answers with direct questions or menaces, she didn't even know that Lucy knew what she wanted to know, so it had to be this way around.

"It's not just that research institute that's after me, Japanese cops weren't impressed with my misspent youth either. I went through this serial killer phase, killing humans for fun."

There was a pause before Lucy said "Yeah, that's why I didn't reveal that, that's also why I don't want to approach Xavier if I can possibly avoid it."

"It could be relevant," said Spyke, "relatives of people you have killed could be after you."

"I don't think it's me she's after, she seemed to be after two other diclonii, I haven't sensed any other Diclonii since I left Kamakura, it's possible these two are escapees like myself, but it's also possible they were never interred there."

"That would be a good place to start any investigation, we could have Lucid and Façade infiltrate the facility, if it still exists," said Spyke.

"I should probably come with you," said Lucy, "I know the facility from being abducted to it, abused in it, and breaking out of it, and I think we need to talk to Nana as well, Director Kurama seemed to trust her a lot more, he wasn't too happy about me ripping her arms and legs off, so she may have more information than I do."

"Ri- … HE, weren't too happy about you ripping her arms and legs off, how do you think Nana is likely to feel about it?"

"We got into a few fights after that, we've pretty much settled things by the time I left," said Lucy, "we might have a problem if we encounter Bando, he's a Special Assault Team operative, I broke one of his arms, severed another, then I suddenly switched to Nyu, my other personality, and left him alive. He's got a tighter grip on his grudge than Osama Bin Laden."

"Sounds like you're going to be encountering a lot of memories over there," said Spyke, "will you be able to function?"

"Don't see any choice, the two Diclonii that woman's after … There aren't too many of my kind that I know of, Diclonius seems to be a specific genus, and like it or not, someone's making this our problem, we need to figure out what's happening and where we need to stand on this," said Lucy "One thing I'm now aware of is that feelings of guilt were what switched me over to Nyu, if that happens in a fight, I'll be of no use to you."

"You dropped something," said someone behind Tiffany.

She then felt something close around her neck.

She tried to phase through it, but couldn't.

She then spun and engaged the woman with the eye patch.

It was a close in down and dirty brawl that didn't end until they both ran out of energy.

"Just who are you?" asked the woman.

"You first," said Tiffany.

"No, you first, you're the intruder, you're the one that started hassling my people, YOU, identify yourself."

"Can't," said Tiffany.

"Good bye," Said Callisto.

Tiffany broke off and sort of skipped and pirouetted at the same time, causing their newest arrival, a black woman with her hands reaching forth for some reason, to topple over, her hands came into contact with the one eyed woman before she reacted to land on her elbows and roll over.

"AAAOOOWWW!" said the one eyed woman as the skin on her arms smoked, the flesh turning red.

"Sorry," said the woman.

Tiffany stepped back saying "Look, information flows one way, from you to me, that's just the way it's got to be, okay? Bye."

Tiffany then ran along the direction the black woman had come from.

[Change Of Scenery]

Callisto followed the woman's footfalls.

She wasn't losing her. This woman was doing something that directly threatened the Morlocks, and Callisto needed to know what.

This woman might not be aware of Callisto's capabilities, but she seemed to Callisto to be an experienced operator, the device the woman had plugged into her ears was direct audio telemetry from a bug in or on Lucy.

'Serial killer phase', a lot of her people had a past, hell, some SHIELD agents she knew had a- …

Why the hell did that woman ask if they knew Wanda Maximoff? Wanda's in SHIELD now.

[Change Of Scenery]

Brittany entered the meeting room where every Legionnaire was assembled. "As you can probably guess, we lost the metas. Now we have to anticipate what they and their precog boss will do."

"Out anticipate a precog. … We do that how exactly?" asked Quinn.

"Backup plans," said Daria, "we know our primary plan will fail, maybe the standard backups, but as soon as the precog's actions or orders change the outcome, there's always some uncertainty as to what those changes will precipitate."

"Give me five minutes and I'll have every permutation accounted for," said Jodie.

"We do need to have some idea of what that precog will want to do," said Stacy.

"We made his or her customers mad at them, maybe that precog's mad at us," said Quinn.

"There are better things the precog could be doing than keeping score," said Sandi, "besides, it was Tiffany that screwed them."

"Think we can anticipate Tiffany's actions?" asked Jane.

"We could make the case that we need to know where Tiffany is in order to protect her," said Daria.

"I said her actions, not her orders," said Jane, "Girl's got about twenty colonies in her belfry."

"She got pissed off, it happens," said Daria.

"Guess you two got that in common," said Jane, "how is it you always take her side over me?"

"When was the last time you had my back in the last five years?" asked Daria.

"ExxxxxxxxCUSE ME?" asked Jane.

"You heard," said Daria.

"When was the last time you were reasonable?" asked Jane.

"Back at you. What else might our precog try? More importantly, how sophisticated is the attack likely to be? Will it be overt, covert, physical, political, what?" asked Daria.

"He or she wants to do political, Tiffany would be a good means, given how long she had both military AND civilian law enforcement membership," said Jane.

"AWW COME ON, YOU DIDN'T SPOT IT EITHER!" said Daria. "EVEN JODIE MISSED IT!"

"KNOCK, IT, OFF, CHILDREN!" said Stacy.

There was about a minute of silence.

"The problem we have is that the precog is a total mystery to us, we only know those metas that Tiffany told us about. We know what they look like, we might, I say MIGHT, be able to find out what they did prior to the cartel job. One thing we do know about the precog is that he or she only recently turned his or her attention to the South American drug cartels because that's what the success rate of the raids on their facilities reflects. The question is, what has our precog been up to prior to that gig?" asked Jodie.

"Those two telekinetics are odd for metahumans," said Julia, "metahumans tend to present with random abilities and features, but the Diclonii, they're in a specific genus called Diclonius, all present with pink hair, pink eyes, horns growing out their head, and usually four vectors, telekinetic 'arms'."

"If the two we're after grew up in any of the G8 countries, wouldn't there be at least three or four registries with photo ID?" asked Daria, "school, vehicle operator, criminal records bureau, customs and excise?"

"Not all kids get registered, not everyone gets born in a maternity ward, not everyone attends school for their education, and especially not everyone gets a vehicle operator license or a passport," said Julia, "even in G8 countries."

"Horns plus little kids are bastards equals desire to home school," said Daria "but home birthing kids with horns sounds implausible, that sounds like we're into caesarean or death territory."

"What about their character?" asked Sandi, "who works as a mercenary? Especially as a liaison with an army of meth-heads?"

"Someone who don't give a damn?" suggested Jane.

"There are specific profiles for mercenaries, but they're based on probability and the range still includes a lot," said Julia, "a lot of retired or otherwise discharged military become mercenaries because they need or want the money, because they like the lifestyle but were administratively separated, because they like to kill but not the rules of war, we could generally exclude anyone who is unskilled at war, unwilling to wage war, there's not a lot we can do to narrow it down."

"Maybe there is," said Daria, "these two are totally off the grid, now, it occurs to me that Diclonii when born are obvious metas, that makes them vulnerable to anyone enacting a 'kill at birth' policy."

"Or superstitious societies such as most the African and Asian boondocks," said Jodie.

"Or the southern states of our great nation," said Daria. Suddenly Daria said "Just occurred to me," she opened her position's embedded computer, each position at the table had a sort of laptop computer embedded into it so each person could make presentations as needed.

She worked the search engine for a while until she said "here we go," and switched the main screen to her terminal.

A message board titled "Diclonius dating and fellowship" with the tagline "got horns? So do we."

"Okay, makes sense, Diclonii need friends too, but how does this help?" asked Jodie.

"Brittany, any time you asked about your targets, how many girls with horns you do end up hearing about?" asked Daria.

"At known waypoints, ten or twelve," said Brittany.

"Decoys," said Daria, "we need to have a face to face conversation with the board administrator, find out if any particular individuals have been messing board members around, maybe accounts got suspended." She entered a topic titled "Introductions And Shameless Boasting." There was one sticky thread titled "Any Invites To Japan: How To Not Disappear."

"Huh … ominous," Daria selected it.

"What are you thinking now?" asked Jane.

"This thread's a few years old now," said Daria, there was a list of at least five call signs with their real names and details, all of them missing. She used shift to open new windows for each page, there were ten pages.

"No photos for a lot of them that could be our metas, I'm thinking they may have been abducted and brainwashed, you don't really need to be registered with anyone to register on a message board," she then found a post by the administrator showing an ISP covering Kanagawa.

"We still need to know about the decoys," said Daria, "but this is also worth a look, if we can get the IP addresses, we should be able to figure out who's been abducting Diclonii and maybe follow them to an organisation."

"Okay, if there's nothing else, let's get on it," said Brittany.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany met Wanda as planned, Tiffany sitting down with a burger meal that cost about 1.5 times that of a McDonalds plastic burger meal, only it tasted and filled like real food. Apparently this place was a meta hangout. She chuckled as she remembered what her fashion club diet was like, salad, celery sticks, no meat, not enough to fill you up. Then they started training under Force Recon instructors and learned about real nutrition. You want protein, you want complex carbohydrates, and you want vitamins and minerals, and for bodybuilding you want lots of them. Of course Sandi and Quinn insisted on the fad diet, so she and Stacy followed suit until about the third PE session that had to be attended by Corpsmen utilising intravenous lines to feed them Glucose brine.

…

…

Or was it the fifth?

…

…

…

Meh.

"If I knew you were going to buy two meals," said Tiffany as Wanda sat down.

"A third person is meeting us," said Wanda.

"Really who?"

"You've met her, white, black hair, C cup. She smells bad, although that can't be helped to be fair, she does live in a sewer after all," said Wanda.

"Eye patch over right eye?" asked Tiffany.

"Correct," said Wanda.

The topic of their conversation entered and sat at Wanda's table. Wanda placed the food she had procured in front of her.

"Callisto, Tiffany. Tiffany, Callisto."

"I take it by the circumstances of the meeting she's supposed to be an ally, maybe even an informant?" asked Tiffany.

"Excellent deduction skills," said Wanda.

"And before you start having a go at me for causing problems between you, you sent me looking for and I quote 'something', that and I quote again 'I'll know when I see it,' … what exactly did you think was going to happen?"

Wanda sighed and eventually said "Okay, fair enough, but there is the small matter of what Callisto heard you hear."

"Illegally obtained evidence, Judge would bin it," said Tiffany, "I'm more interested in locating the two diclonii and having an excuse to give them a nice eternal dirt nap."

"What did they do?" asked Callisto.

"They killed three Navy enlisted and were involved in a conspiracy to kill the Legion," said Tiffany.

"You NCIS or Marshals?" asked Callisto.

"Coast Guard," said Tiffany. That was sort of The Navy, but able to operate in civilian Law Enforcement roles.

"Right. You got more information than Lucy does right now," said Callisto, "do we have any further business?"

"Lucy has revealed that she can sense other Diclonii, that could prove essential," said Tiffany.

"I'll ask her if she's willing to assist you, but if she is, I'll want the rest of us along with her, Lucy is a Morlock, which means we watch out for her."

"Fair enough, but it's my show," said Tiffany. She felt that Callisto was an able leader and the Morlocks had been fairly good opponents, but Tiffany also wondered how she'd deal with any directions Tiffany might give.

Callisto frowned and said "Fine, your show, but my people, and I will deviate if I feel you are abusing your appointed position. And remember, that's 'if', not 'when'."

"Bayville airport, 12:45 tomorrow if it's on," said Wanda, "we'll be going to Japan anyway to check this out."

[Change Of Scenery]

Stacy picked up two bags of doughnuts and two bottles of ultra-cola before joining the queue at the till.

After paying for everything she returned to the car and handed the shopping over to Jodie as she entered, and once Stacy was in, she started the car and they were off again.

"Not much of a conversationalist lately are you?" asked Jodie.

"Yeah, had Daria and Jane on my mind mainly," said Stacy, "I mean, did you hear that argument they had in the meeting?"

"They haven't felt support from one another for a while because with us, acts of heroism are a dime a dozen," said Jodie, "therefore, disagreements matter more than victories."

"That's a little cold," said Stacy, "I know they've been pretty cynical since I've known them, but this … … … It's … … … well, it's really sad is what it is."

"Yeah, I hate to say it, but we need a really big crisis to get those two to value each other again," said Jodie.

"People have to die just to get those two to be friends again?" asked Stacy.

"Probably," said Jodie, "I dunno, I guess the only people who can actually do anything about them is Daria and Jane themselves."

"Haven't they already had crisises? What about when they got captured by that Wyatt guy? Or when we all got stuck in that jungle fighting that cartel?"

"Apparently they weren't big enough crises," said Jodie.

Jodie and Stacy continued on their journey to find the diclonius message board administrator.

[Change Of Scenery]

Bando watched as Kouta and Yuka went about removing rotting leaves and other accumulated crap out the gutters around the roof of the Maple Inn.

Nana hadn't stepped outside the building, you'd think with her vectors she'd be ideal for this, vectors don't need washing or return any unpleasant tactile sensations … … do they?

Bando was concealed in a tree, his Special Assault Team training was proving essential in his efforts to reap vengeance against Lucy, as soon as that bitch returns, she is his to kill.

He could so use a coffee about now. He could smell it- wait a minute.

He looked around and saw a paper cup of coffee floating next to him.

"Don't know if you take it with sugar, but I got some," said Nana.

She was seated on a branch above and to his right.

He growled a few second but eventually accepted the coffee. After taking a sip, he said "How did you find me?"

"There's only so many places you can hide, and when you're expected, well … " said Nana.

"Right."

Bando chuckled at the absurdity of the situation.

He used to be hot shit when he was in the SAT, top reflexes, excellent target acquisition, the price was that most missions bored the shit out of him, and that ultimately led to him being defeated by Lucy.

When he had encountered her in Nyu mode, he and a friend beat her and Kouta to the ground, and dragged her away. His mate in retrospect had been right to follow orders, keep your distance, call in support, not that overwhelming firepower had done much for them, mainly because they had mostly been using 9mm sub and 7.62mm rifle.

Net result, they slapped Lucy around a bit, and he had finally ordered his mate to kill Lucy, but by then, she had switched personae from Nyu to Lucy, and his mate was torn apart right in front of him.

She then stands up like the screwing T1000 out of Terminator 2: Judgement Day.

He had then unloaded a clip at Lucy, finding to his dismay that she was deflecting all his shots.

After spending a few minutes throwing boats, rocks and other crap at him, she stood over him, ripped one arm off, broke the other, and poked his eyes out.

Then something switched her to Nyu mode and she left.

Then that kid Mayu showed up and saved him.

Director Kurama, of the research facility Lucy had escaped from, saw to it he got cybernetic replacements, but also made it a condition that he get castrated.

On the plus side, that condition was to be met in a separate operation following the cybernetic implants, and he punched his way out. That point he had elected to seek revenge against Lucy.

He was clearing the beach of things Lucy could throw when he encountered Mayu. He gave Mayu his cell phone number saying 'call me if you're in a pinch, I'll kill them all.' He had then asked her to look out for a girl with horns.

"You mean Nyu?" asked the girl.

He promptly began interrogating her. During the interrogation, she almost comically waved the phone number he had just given her in front of his face saying "Please sir, I'm in a pinch."

Well what could he do? He owed her. He told her to leave and never show her face to him again.

Next thing he knew he saw Nana. He pulled his Desert Eagle with its AP ammo, and started interrogating her.

Nana was in worship of Director Kurama. He had to explain what Kurama had told him about the Diclonii, that they were out to kill off species homosapian, and following that explanation she had resolved herself (after a brief crying jag) to kill him.

She followed him into the area of the beach he had prepared, and then he sprung his surprise that there was nothing for her to throw.

Then he found out about her prosthetic limbs. She revealed this fact by throwing one of her arms at him. He dropped his primary weapon, she stood over him like Lucy had.

He then drew his second with his prosthetic arm.

The prosthesis was absolutely shit, it disintegrated under the recoil, Nana probably didn't need her vectors to deflect that round, which skipped off her head.

She reaches up, her hand comes away bloody, she's like "Blood?" Then she's crouching next to him, one arm off, the other covering her eyes crying "PAPA! IT HURTS! IT HURTS!"

That was how ridiculous his life had got at that point.

She was also on the vengeance train after that point.

Bando hadn't seen the part where Lucy and Nana made up, all he saw was Mariko bouncing Nana off the road, Kurama (after meeting him and getting his prosthesis changed out and getting him to accompany him to rescue Nana) went to rescue Nana, she'd fallen off the bridge after disabling Mariko's vectors, he then saw Lucy with that kid Kouta, He chased Lucy off, she got the upper hand again, then Lucy was like "You won't see me again," and left him there.

She made a bunch of appearances moving away from this place, but he figured sooner or later, Lucy would return to Kouta.

And When she did …

"Bando?" asked Nana.

"Yes?"

"How is it you can take vengeance so seriously after all this time?" asked Nana.

"She ripped both your arms and both your legs off, how is it you can forgive her?" asked Bando.

"I'm not sure I can or have, but she later saved my life, she'd started showing remorse, and to be honest, if you have to try to harbour a grudge, it's time to let go and … … well, … … just get a life."

"You just don't understand the warriors code do you?" asked Bando.

"No, but I know sad when I see it," said Nana. "This can't be fun for you, it's not serving any higher purpose, I mean, just what are you doing?"

Bando tried to frame a response and eventually said "If I have to explain, you wouldn't understand."

Nana sighed, and eventually dropped out the tree, landing on her vectors. She then returned to the Maple Inn to assist Kouta and Yuka in their housekeeping operations.

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria and Charles were the ones that were assigned to chase up the Japanese side of this investigation. They had secured the IP addresses, but they would need to actually go over there and start knocking on doors to figure out who lived there at the times of the disappearances.

They had to make a fuel stop at LAX. Because of the recent number of incidents where the Gridrunners had been damaged or incapacitated, the Legion's backers had insisted they cut back on their use as far as possible, the L1s were cheaper, so Daria and Charles had taken an L1b two seater.

The problem is that they were now spending five hours in flight instead of the thirty minutes the Gridrunner would take.

That also meant watching their hydration, if they under hydrate, they risk hallucinating, not the best thing to do when driving any aircraft, let alone a fast jet, over hydrate and you spend most the light holding it in.

Next fuel stop was Hawaii and then Haneda.

[Change Of Scenery]

Wanda and Tiffany waited near the baggage check-in as 12:30 passed.

Eventually they heard gasps and comments.

At 12:31, they caught sight of the Morlocks.

Wanda handed them their passports and tickets.

Lucy made her way around the group to Tiffany.

"Tiffany?" asked Lucy.

"Yeah?"

Tiffany felt something punch her in the side of her head, she fell over landing in a heap on her side.

She was on her feet fast. Too fast really, she found herself overshooting her centre of mass. Callisto stopped Tiffany from falling over again and stood her up straight. The cold feeling encompassing her left ear and the entire left face of her brain accompanied with nausea and loss of equilibrium was alarming. "That could have killed me you moron!"

"Implant anything into my body without my express permission again, and I will kill you," said Lucy. She then joined the queue for the security checkpoint, she only had one bag.

Callisto then told Tiffany "Never, EVER, piss off a recovering serial killer," she then joined the baggage check in queue as she needed to put her bag in the hold because of all the edged and blunt weapons she was packing.

As the Morlocks moved on, Wanda smirked at Tiffany.

Tiffany glared at Wanda and eventually said "Never ever piss off a Navy SEAL," before moving on somewhat unsteadily.

[Change Of Scenery]

Lucy was sat in front of two kids. Ten year old kids who seemed to whisper between themselves when she had been stowing her bag in the overhead compartment.

This was why Lucy had stowed on a container ship when she emigrated from Japan. Kids like that could easily push her off the wagon.

And now the two sawn off turds were climbing over the back of her seat.

She felt with her vectors until she located their fingers, which were approaching the remains of her horns.

She grabbed them and pulled their arms forward, pulling them until they were resting by their sternums on the seat back.

"I'm sure my head really is that fascinating to you, but if you don't want to lose your fingers or any other body parts, you might consider sitting down, shutting up, and making like a pair of statues for the rest of the flight. Agreed?"

"Agreed," chorused the kids.

Lucy let go and the two kids sat back down, now extremely fearful of provoking the object of their curiosity.

At times like this, Lucy LOVED being a diclonius.

[Change Of Scenery]

"What's the Legion's interest in us?" asked Phillip Lien, the administrator of the Diclonius message board as he read the warrant.

"We think two Diclonius mercenaries may have been setting up meetings with other Diclonii in order to disguise their own movements though technologically deficient airports, how often do board members get asked to meet up somewhere and then find they've been stood up?" asked Stacy.

"We get that all the time, but we figured it's kids messing them around for laughs," said Phillip.

"That is a possibility in some cases, but we need to work that out for ourselves," said Jodie, "what we want to do is build up a picture of movement, we need to trace the IP addresses of these pranksters at the dates the pranks were committed, have there been specific days or months you can remember these pranks occurring in their hundreds?"

Phillip Lien grabbed a flash drive and plugged it into a USB hub saying "it started about a year ago, every few months or thereabouts, I'd see members talking about individuals rather impolitely about having forked out a couple of hundred bucks to meet other diclonii at locations clustered around an airport on the corner of no and where," he said. The Warrant had specified private messages from individuals who had stood up other board members at pre-arranged meetings.

This was going to take a while.

[Change Of Scenery]

"Welcome to Japan," said Haruka Hibiki, a mutant rights activist. He had pyrokinetic abilities and several law degrees.

"Thank you," said Daria, "we're investigating a number of disappearances that have apparently occurred here."

"Diclonii?" asked Haruka.

"Yeah," said Daria, "what's your opinion of the local cops in this area?"

"A certain Kevin Bloody Wilson song says it best," said Haruka.

"I came across a couple of BOLOs for diclonii during our investigation into a couple of diclonii working as mercenaries, weather or not they're connected, the thing that drew my attention was that the BOLO for Nana has no crimes specified, whereas Lucy's BOLO has a string of murders."

"Anything else draw your attention?" asked Haruka.

"A Diclonii message board," said Daria, "I want to find out who was living at all these IP addresses when these disappearances occurred, but before I start approaching the DA for warrants, I want to get a lay of the legal land, if going to the DA results in the destruction of evidence before we arrive to serve the warrant-"

"It will," said Haruka.

"I see … I'll find another way then, thanks," said Daria.

"Sorry I couldn't be more help," said Haruka.

She left and used her flight ring to say '**Charles from Daria, our legal advice says try another way**.'

'**Daria Charles, have that, infiltration successful, as soon as I figure out which banks pay these individuals, I'll fill out the warrants and make them look legit, also sticking a shunt into the Judge's phone lines.'**

'**Received, out.**'

[Change Of Scenery]

As they de-planed, Callisto asked Wanda "what's the Legion doing here? I saw an L1 with Legion roundels on the apron as we landed."

"No idea," said Wanda.

Tiffany had overheard this and wondered to herself what was going on.

Legion must be chasing the Diclonii Mercenaries too.

But they weren't too happy about the lengths she was willing to go to in order to find out what she could about them.

'Legion can screw themselves', thought Tiffany.

This hadn't been their fault though, her being kicked out the Legion was her own fault for losing control. She should have realised what their reaction would have been.

They could have been a lot more understanding though.

They were supposed to be her friends after all.

Screw this introspection, she had a job to do.

[Change Of Scenery]

After the phone call resulted in the judge confirming the warrant, the bank manager accepted the flash drive from Daria and started going through all the names. Daria dipped into his thoughts every now and then when he wasn't looking at her.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany was the only one who had a driving license in every country, so it was her that ended up parking the minibus in the local mall, now they were in the same postcode area as their objectives, they wanted to reduce the amount of attention they drew to a minimum.

Eventually she caught up with Wanda and the Morlocks as they walked past the cemetery.

Lucy was at point because she knew the area. She stopped and turned to Callisto, saying "Something's wrong here."

"What?" asked Callisto.

"I can sense Nana, she should be sensing me back, for some reason she seems to be nauseas, like she's expecting something bad to happen."

"You de-limbed her," said Spyke.

"She shouldn't fear that," said Lucy, "I think there may be something else going on."

"Like what?" asked Callisto.

Lucy thought about it and eventually said "I don't know."

"Façade and Lucid do a close target reconnaissance ahead of us," said Callisto.

They both ran off ahead of them and Callisto listened to them.

Eventually Lucid said "There's a sniper in the trees south east of the facility. Not seeing anything else, this guy's acting alone."

Callisto relayed this, and Lucy said "Bando I bet."

"Have Lucid guide you, Torpid and Lucy under the tree, should sort him, I'll keep Lucy intangible in case he sees us coming," said Tiffany.

"Okay," said Callisto.

They advanced as planned, finding themselves under the tree, looking up they saw the guy in the tree, a 12.5mm rifle resting across his elbows, binoculars in hand.

Torpid removed her gloves and Lucy lifted Torpid with her vectors.

Lucy then lifted herself and Torpid with sufficient velocity to overcome the height. Torpid touched the guy and he fell out the tree stiff as a board.

Lucy landed first, placing Torpid on the ground before she caught the guy, Tiffany caught his rifle. "Hi Bando. Shouldn't you have gotten a life by now?"

"Where do we put him?" asked Wanda.

Lucy thought about it and eventually said "Well, he knows where the Maple Inn is, no longer a secret, might as well hold him there."

They walked to the Maple Inn entrance and the door opened before any of them could knock on it.

A Diclonius girl poked her head out the door.

"Hi Nana," said Lucy.

"What are you doing here?" asked Nana.

"Apparently two Diclonii are threatening to take over the world or something," said Lucy, she then looked at Wanda and said "she cleared to know everything?"

"Yeah," said Wanda, "I'm from SHIELD, Tiffany's assisting me, so are the Morlocks, who Lucy joined a while back."

"Okay, what did you need to come here for?" asked Nana.

"Well, we need to hear everything you can remember about the institute, I didn't get a good look because I had a sensory deprivation helmet locked to my head."

"Oh, I see," said Nana looking depressed.

"See what?" asked Lucy.

"Lucy, you're after revenge, aren't you?"

"Well … … A little … … in the company of friends, but there's a higher purpose here, it's not like I'm this guy," said Lucy, gesturing at Bando, "Now Kurama's dead you can't POSSIBLY want that institute to keep operating can you? The longer they remain in operation, the greater the chance they'll reacquire you."

Nana shivered a little and said "Okay, fine, but you're not bringing that in here," pointing at Bando, "give me a minute and we'll go somewhere to talk."

[Change Of Scenery]

"Okay, this institution seems to be where all their money's coming from," said Daria, pointing at the name of the company, "tells me that's where they were abducted to."

"Not necessarily," said Charles, "could just be a hobby."

"That's also possible," acknowledged Daria, "but I don't think so, the scale of this tells me if it was a bunch of hobbyists, there's a strong chance one or more of them would have told on them, these guys must think they have some kind of obligation, for the greater good, and there's evidence of police collusion, there's just too many people for a serial abductor club."

"What would be the purpose?" asked Charles.

"The usual," said Daria, "Earth for humans: Mutants out."

[Change Of Scenery]

"It's on an island out in the bay," said Nana, "don't know how many basement levels there are, from what I saw from the air, it's about 100 metres wide and long in total, surface structure's tall enough to have about seven stories if the floor pitch were like that of a normal building, but I'm less sure about the internal layout because I was brought straight out to the waiting helicopter. There's a cliff behind it, don't know if that's of use to you."

They had set up in a local cemetery. From what Nana said, it was unlikely they would be disturbed here, Lucy had also been looking guilty to the point of needing Nana to assure her "It's fine now," she had then explained that this was where Lucy and Nana had gotten into it for the first time.

Nana had walked up to Lucy with the radio transmitter in a shopping bag, asked Lucy a bunch of times to go back to the institute with her. First time, Lucy told her to go away, then she had reached inside Nana with her vectors threatening to rip her brain apart if she didn't leave.

Then she slammed Nana against the wall.

Then Nana had punched Lucy across the cemetery.

After a brawl that involved Lucy throwing gravestones, Lucy ended up ripping Nana's limbs off. First it was just a leg and all the fingers on one of Nana's hands when Nana ballsed up her side of the fight. Then Lucy walked up to Nana and slowly removed each limb. Lucy had been pissed off at Nana's unwavering loyalty to Kurama.

Now Lucy couldn't help but dwell on how out of order she had been.

Anyway, here they were, Bando was propped up against a tall gravestone, his 12.5mm rifle against another, Tiffany, Wanda, Nana and the Morlocks just standing around chatting.

"Could be good for observation and sniper points if it's tall enough, what about the surrounding islands?" asked Tiffany.

"Coast guard huh?" asked Callisto.

Disregarding Callisto's scepticism, Tiffany said "anything that can help us assault the facility is a bonus, also, if we're going to be extracting people, we could probably do with some rotorcraft or other vertical flight aircraft."

"Where do you expect to find that?" asked Callisto.

"I'll figure that out. It would also help if we could rustle up some explosives," said Tiffany.

"And where do you expect to find explosives?" asked Callisto.

"I'll figure that out too," said Tiffany.

"What do you need us for then?" asked Callisto.

"From what Lucy and Nana have been saying, these guys have a serious anti-meta streak, you all remember those sentinel robots that Boliver Trask asshole developed? These guys are getting some serious finance from somewhere, and that makes these guys especially our problem, because they're after all of us," said Tiffany, "they have got to go. We also need to find who's financing this crap and take them out of play too. We could encounter a problem when we attack."

"Yeah? Like what?" asked Callisto.

"Metajammers. Coming up against those wayyyy too often these days," said Tiffany.

"We need up to date intel on that place before we can plan anything," said Wanda.

"In addition," said Tiffany, "it sounds like any prisoners still alive would be a liability in any court case, they may have a 'kill all the prisoners' button in a bunch of locations. At the very least, we should probably treat this like a hostage situation, assume the prisoners are in imminent danger."

"How do you intend to get this intel?" asked Callisto.

"I want to take you, Lucid and Façade to the island for a close target reconnaissance, if they're using meta-jammers, we'll find out immediately if they're active, if they're inactive, I can tell Lucid what to look for, and … … Wanda, how come SHIELD has nothing on these guys?"

"Well, I've never been involved in anything to do with Japan, so I can only speculate, but it seems to me that these guys simply fell through the cracks. What were these guys doing to you two when they had you?" asked Wanda.

Lucy scowled while Nana shivered.

"I think they were trying to test resilience to injury and attack," said Lucy.

"They had me chained to this wall, they kept shooting these iron balls at me to test which of them I could deflect, other times they'd drug my food so they could approach to hurt me, they were pleased to see how fast I recovered," said Nana. "I can't believe I thought that was normal."

"You were there from birth," said Lucy, "I was captured at age ten after growing up amongst some of the most piss poor examples of humanity. If it weren't for Kouta, I'd still be pissed off at the world, killing everyone for laughs."

"Question: Metajammers: How do we counter?" asked Callisto.

"The old fashioned way: Guns, knives, asps, bombs, fists, feet, elbows, knees, forehead, boards with nails through them," said Tiffany.

"Slight problem with that: Only four of us are any good at that kind of violence," said Callisto, "You, me, Spyke and Wanda."

"That case, first target will have to be the metajammers if they have them," said Tiffany. "Right now, we're speculating about everything, we really need to get the close target reconnaissance done first and foremost."

[Change Of Scenery]

Without knowing what was going on, it was a bad idea to rely on mental persuasion within half a kilometre of the objective. That was why Daria used her powers to alter the personal in charge of the dispatch of personal to the island.

She managed to get Haruka on board, it's less likely the security heads on the island were going to know who he was, but Charles would draw attention by being a pasty redhead Caucasian with antennae growing out his head.

Daria was also out for being of foreign appearance but she mentally wrangled a position flying him in.

She was vertical flight qualified, so that was sort of the same thing as rotary wing qualified.

Wasn't it?

"Control from Juliet Alpha Four Five One Charlie, request go for takeoff, over?"

"Juliet Alpha Four Five One Charlie, go for takeoff, surface wind seven two knots four two degrees, have a nice flight."

Daria opened the throttle to mil and lifted the collective. She found herself oscillating the tail as she chased down the equilibrium between the main rotor and the tail rotor to the alarm of the passengers, and accelerated into forward flight, alarming her passengers again when she overdid the forward pitch, she eased back and slowed the acceleration in favour of maintaining a decent climb rate.

"Sorry, used to fly by wire systems," explained Daria.

They had to try to prepare Haruka for infiltration as best they could. The main advantage they had been able to give themselves was that Haruka was supposed to be a new recruit, so mistakes were to be expected, but they also had to emphasise as much as possible that he had to just put up with seeing atrocities and not saying anything against them, allowing anti-meta rhetoric to be said unopposed, or even feigning agreement with it, grudging agreement would probably be okay as it would be expected some people might find it difficult to go along with this crap.

If there were no metajammers in use, Daria could simply scan the minds of some of the people there. She would wait until she was on her way out.

Any problems, she would have Charles assist, he was carrying out a "Diagnostic Flight" in the L1 at this point about 30km away. Daria would feign compliance until Charles was close enough to suppress enemy air defences and displace any air threats. He'd be strafing with PFTs because hanging AGM88s or other suitable weapons off the L1 would prompt way more questions than they could lie their way through, aside from that, someone capturing a Legion L1 visibly launching weapons on a piece of Japanese real estate on video media would just plain piss off the wrong people. Not ideal from a combat operations point of view, but it's what they had to do.

On the plus side, the Helo had been fitted with decoys and smoke generators good for both cheap and cheerful intercept missiles and the more expensive optical recognition guidance that a lot of NATO and other allied weapons had been retrofitted with.

Another reason to try to keep the JSDF out of the theatre.

[Change Of Scenery]

"You're drain cleaner's done," said Kouta as he carried the oven dish full of sodium hydroxide granules into the room. It had taken some convincing and several boxes of Kleenex (used by both Kouta AND Lucy), and finally Mayu arriving home from school and threatening to be disappointed in the kind of examples Kouta and Yuka were setting her, but Kouta and Yuka had eventually agreed to allow the Morlocks to operate from the Maple Inn.

"Thanks for letting us work here," said Callisto. She and Tiffany were constructing the rest of the …

"That's not a bomb is it?" asked Yuka. Seeing the place fill up with mutants apparently out to attack the place that Nana and Lucy had been held at.

"No, these are re-breathers," said Tiffany They were using 12mm tube and Araldite, straps, buckles, cement, aggregate and wire from the local B&Q, hot water bottles, Sodium Hydroxide, Vanish Oxi-Action, and heavy duty rubbish bags from Wilkos, 1L Lucozade bottles from Asda, it indicated those who were not of Tiffany's background that Tiffany had been watching a few too many MacGyver episodes.

"You're sure about that are you?" asked Yuka.

"There's no explosive components," said Wanda as she assembled the tubes to the mouth pieces. "That drain cleaner's got a low chemical energy state, it's useful to us because it'll attract carbon dioxide."

"You think we'd stick it in the oven if it could explosively decompose?"

"Why did you stick it in the oven anyway?" asked Kouta.

"Drive out any carbon dioxide it picked up," said Tiffany, "That can't happen explosively because release of carbon dioxide is endothermic. We're baking it so the re-breathers will last longer."

"How deep do you want to be?" asked Lucy.

"Ten to twenty metres should do us, can't go deeper than forty metres or we'll get intoxicated on the nitrogen, and if we can skip the decompression stops, that'll preserve the capacity of our CO2 scrubbers."

"What about this other stuff?" asked Kouta pointing at all the oxi-action tubs.

"We need to replace the oxygen we use, or we just end up breathing purified nitrogen," said Tiffany, "That's even worse, because carbon dioxide agitates you, irritates your lungs, lets you know there's a problem, nitrogen does not. Having said that, nitrogen isn't toxic like carbon dioxide is. We still want the oxygen replenished, so we stick a bag of Oxi-action in a bottle, add a splash of water, insulate the outside, inside in contact with our body so our body heat accelerates the reaction, that should do us. We'll need to recharge that before we leave the island because once we start the reaction, there's no good way to arrest it."

"And you're not simply hiring the kit from a local rental agency because … ?" asked Yuka.

"We'll appear on someone's radar," said Tiffany, "not just the institute, but JSDF coastguard wants to stop drugs and small arms getting into the country, aside from that, there's no recreational reason to use re-breathers, it's too unusual."

"What about weapons?" asked Callisto.

"I've managed to locate a supplier for small arms in the area," said Wanda, "I can get us some SMGs, maybe some ARs, but no one's willing to deal in explosives," said Wanda.

"Small arms will do us for reconnaissance, try and get us some ARs, suppressors too if available, but we can improvise those easy if we have to. And keep the number down to the recon team for now," said Tiffany, "anything more and heavier can wait until we attack, I can probably steal the heavy stuff from a local JSDF depot, but once we steal from that, the clock starts ticking. Nothing draws attention like empty shelves that should have weapons on them."

"How do we stop our guns from getting wet?" asked Nana.

Everyone looked at her.

"I SO hope we have our powers available," said Callisto, "modern breech loading rounds of ammunition are hermetically sealed, you'd have to be extremely deep for water infiltration to be a problem."

"One thing I do want to quickly mention," said Tiffany, "don't fire when under water or while there's water in the barrel, the water will have a tampering effect that could cause the barrel to rupture, it don't have to be bone dry, just tip it down as you lift it out the water."

Tiffany then looked at Nana and asked "are you mentally prepared to kill?"

Nana looked conflicted.

"The rules of engagement for this operation will mean pre-empting the enemy, chances are you'll end up having to shoot someone just to keep them from raising the alarm. That's another point, Lucid, how do you feel about killing? Can you?"

"I've never had to … I think I can."

"You'll have to, immediately the instant it fits the rules of engagement. That particular lesson cost me a horn," said Lucy.

When Lucy had come up against Mariko, Lucy had managed to throw Mariko against a railing and floored her, and Lucy had taken the time to tell Mariko "Don't worry, I don't intend to let you suffer long," and had basically handed the fight over to Mariko on a silver platter. That had been so embarrassing. The only reason she hadn't been killed was because Kurama and Nana had shown up. It was pure luck she had lived to learn from this.

"Okay, if they have meta-jammers active, I'll want you to return to the exit point, Callisto?"

Callisto grinned "Can I?"

"I don't know how you were planning on getting there in a reasonable time," said Lucy, "but I can pull us all there a lot faster with my vectors."

"Do you have to kill at all?" asked Yuka.

"We may be able to procure some PFTs for the attack, so we may be able to just knock everyone out, but that institution has to be shut down and permanently, it is an Auschwitz level atrocity happening in there as we speak," said Tiffany.

"I'm sure Nana might be willing to elaborate on that if you don't trust the rest of us," said Callisto, "human or meta, you just don't put people through that."

"Where are you going to take them?" asked Kouta.

"Who?" asked Tiffany.

"The prisoners, when you free them where are you going to take them?"

"Well … " Tiffany had to think about that one.

"We need to get them on a flight to America, but it's possible we'll need an entire airliner for them all, and that airliner will have to fly unopposed," said Wanda.

"Closest alternatives are Korea, China, and Russia, roughly equidistant, same problem, if we can steal weapons, we can steal helos, we'll need at least those in order to extract the prisoners, the problem is we need helo pilots, even with care free handling features," said Tiffany.

"What about a boat?" asked Callisto.

"That could work," said Tiffany, "but we'd need to keep the JSDF from taking an interest."

"Submarine?" asked Wanda.

"If we can find one big enough," said Tiffany.

"Could we build one?" asked Callisto, "we're building all this stuff."

"Scale we're talking, we'd need a dry dock, or some way of getting it from construction site to water," said Tiffany. Tiffany slowly got this look on her face. "You know what might make a suitable construction site?"

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria took off again with a bunch of outbound passengers. There were metajammers in operation here. Furthermore, she had seen evidence of Mandroids, what Mechwarrior players would refer to as Elemental Suits. Footprints in the grassed areas around the open area indicated they had been moving Mandroids around the base as part of their security precautions.

In a few days Haruka would receive a phone call telling him his mom was in hospital following a heart problem, he'd be flown out, Daria and Charles would de-brief him, and they would go from there. Problem was that the bad guys might limit what new recruits see, which means most the critical intelligence needed to mount an attack would be unavailable.

They might need to get the rest of the Legion in on this.

[Change Of Scenery]

Haruka watched with a certain amount of scepticism as the video showed the compilation of footage of a variety of Diclonius captures, "as you can see, these ruthless killing machines start off from a very early age," said the Security boss. He then selected the next thumbnail and said "here is what happened when one of your predecessors got too close to Lucy."

They watched as the video footage showed the restrained and shrouded diclonius dismembered the security guard and removed the keys to her restraints from his pockets. The second one unloaded his sidearm at her, but all the bullets got deflected as Lucy unlocked her restraints.

The footage showed the progress of Lucy as she made her way to ground level, and came up against a row of guards packing MP5s. "It didn't occur to us at the time that her capability was such that none of our rounds could get through, we only had one 12.5mm rifle." A woman stumbled into view, carrying a tray with a cup of coffee, she fell over in front of Lucy. "It also didn't help that one of our personal assistants provided Lucy with a shield that limited her target cross section from us." Lucy then decapitated the woman and held her body up.

They then expended all their ammunition at Lucy, and Lucy advanced. One guard ran at Lucy intending to beat her down with his MP5, only to have his still beating heart ripped out and thrown into the lap of another guard.

The video showed Lucy walk past Kurama doing nothing more than lay a bloody vector print on his back.

"We're not entirely sure why Lucy let Director Kurama live, probably some personal vendetta that involved keeping him alive."

The video continued. If crimes against humanity were being committed, no doubt the guards in this room were not going to be very sympathetic towards the victims.

[Change Of Scenery]

"My vision just stopped," said Lucid.

They were ascending the mountain behind the facility.

"Okay, we'll have to go around," said Tiffany, "if you still can't see anything useful, I'll try to sneak up to the place the old fashioned way."

Tiffany, Lucy, Callisto and Lucid were on the island equipped with type 86 rifles smuggled in from China, Wanda had even managed to get them suppressors and holographic tritium sights.

Nana had been able to describe the island in surprisingly good detail, so Tiffany had a good idea of where to go. She took point and slowly led them along.

"Hey," whispered Callisto.

Tiffany looked back, and Callisto signalled 'Enemy, 2 o'clock.'

Tiffany signalled for them all to hit the deck and crawled forward.

Eventually she heard what Callisto had heard. Something whirring and thumping. Like Ed-209 off of Robocop.

A Mandroid.

Tiffany watched through the ferns and brambles as two walked past.

This could be a problem.

…

…

…

Or it might be their way in.

[Change Of Scenery]

"You were paying attention when you were shown that video, right?" asked the Scientist.

"Yes," said Haruka, he aimed his PFT M2 at the woman's head as they entered the 6 metre by 6 metre room. The woman was a 20-ish diclonius, she sat on a corner silently watching them. They got to the centre of the room and the scientist placed the paper plate of egg and sausage sandwiches and a paper cup full of water on the floor.

They then backed out and closed the door.

Through the one way glass, they watched her for half a minute, the scientist said "sometimes they don't eat. We have two answers to that, a THC aerosol, give them the munchies, otherwise we sedate them and inject intravenous food into them, they don't stay alive, we don't learn anything from them."

"How come we need so many of them? There's, like, 200 floors of cells here," said Haruka.

"Some of the experiments will be lethal, we also need to see if some of the viruses we're developing for them will pass from one to another," said the scientist. "That one's been here for a few months, next one's only been here a couple of weeks." The woman they were watching walked in a crouch to the plate and the cup and started eating. "Good." They moved on.

They entered the next cell.

This one was of similar age, only she had been crying recently, and her knuckles were bruised and cut. She looked at them asking "how can you justify this? What did I ever do to you?"

"Remember not to let them engage you in conversation," said the scientist, "they're just animals."

"Right," said Haruka, having this guy talk like this right in front of her sickened him a little, 'they're just animals, they're not people, just like the Tutsis of Rwanda, the Jews of Germany, the Palestinians in Israel/Palestine, the Muslims of former Yugoslavia,' easy enough for people to do this over differences in faith or birthright. People with horns? They're fucked.

The woman let out a cry of despair. "Yeah, they do that too for the first few weeks, sometimes they get violent," said the Scientist. "Takes a few months for them to finally learn to behave themselves." He placed the food and drink on the floor and they left.

Haruka watched this one through the one way glass as the woman continued to cry.

"We'll check back on this one later."

One useful fact Haruka had learned was that the building was still under construction, it was being done upside down. The piles that were sunk went all the way to the bedrock, which wasn't that far down anyway, and they were now cutting through rock. The nice thing about the rock was that it was way harder than the concrete they were using could ever be, so they could just carve the main structure out of that, only using the concrete to isolate the stone from any mechanical shock that could fracture it.

The useful thing about it was that every floor had an identical layout, and the metajammers were isolated in separate wells on separate power sources. This was to make it impossible for rampaging prisoners to access the metajammers, but Daria and Charles had an L1 with PFTs, what they should be able to do is climb to about 80000 ft, and attack all the metajammers vertically. The PFT shafts had access structures located around the perimeter of the building, so aiming should be well easy.

[Change Of Scenery]

"Okay, you'll want to grab some jet skis, or something similar, I'm just not seeing any motors capable of withstanding immersion in water," said Kouta. He'd built a spreadsheet using the Excel and calculus training he'd received on his college course which, while not teaching ship architecture, had given him some transferable skills.

"The ducted prop off a jet ski makes better use of the power and is less vulnerable to damage anyway," said Tiffany, "Should be easier to disguise the noise too."

"I added probably more ribs than the sub will need, but I wouldn't take it deeper than five metres," said Kouta.

"Okay," said Tiffany, "what are we doing for control surfaces?"

"I'm having real problems with that, you need the control system to go through the submarine's hull, that means either some kind of pressure bushings or hydraulic actuators, and that means special order, which means both a long time and a paper trail."

"Okay, I think I can improvise those, not the actuators, but I think I can improvise some bushings for a shaft, that'll allow us to manipulate the control surfaces," said Tiffany "we won't need roll axis, yaw and pitch will do us."

"Ballast system was surprisingly less of a problem, Solid block of concrete for your emergency ballast, pull a handle, you'll rise like a trident, liquid ballast can be displaced by compressed air that'll be built up while the submarine is on the surface, main power system will be car batteries and a generator, you're going to have to be damn sure about the integrity of the exhaust system though," said Kouta.

"We could have a real problem getting this thing in the water though," said Callisto.

"We steal the truck, load the submarine on it, drive the truck into the water off a dock or something, submarine swims off," said Tiffany, "cops put it down to joy riders. Won't matter if we also put up a smoke screen then, it'll look like an attempt to draw attention."

"How do we make smoke without damaging the submarine?" asked Callisto.

"I can make a smoke composition out of sodium chlorate and sugar," said Tiffany, "add pottery paints for colour, it'll reinforce the prankster impression we're trying to create."

"How much time are we looking at in total here?" asked Callisto.

"I'd say at least three days," said Tiffany, "One day we get everything we need, try and make a start, next day we complete the modules as far as we can in anticipation of assembly, final day we steal the truck, get everything to a B&Q, break in, get the hull built, launch the submarine, we then hit the JSDF armoury, and attack. Without knowing the layout of the enemy stronghold, we're going to be working blind, we extract the prisoners, fornicate off to Korea or somewhere. … Toilets, that's going to be a problem, we're going to be crapping in a bucket, hauling it up through the conning tower-"

There was a chorus of variations of "Ewwwww!" even from the Morlocks, used to living in the sewers, weren't too happy.

"We could add a sceptic tank, not like we're going to have any use for this thing once we've offloaded everyone, right?" said Callisto.

"Good point," said Tiffany, "going to want to do something to destroy the scent molecules though."

"I'm trying to think of a way we can use a nearby airport though," said Wanda, "we could probably get the diclonii to the airport if we move them to land one by one."

"We could probably stow everyone on a container ship," said Lucy, "the numbers might make hiding from the crew difficult, but that SHIELD badge might make them a lot more accommodating."

"We are well outside our jurisdiction here, we'd be better off with menaces," said Wanda, "once we get to Hawaii, we'll be back in US Jurisdiction, I'm a cop commandeering a vehicle for police business, so that should get us out of any piracy charges, and since the Japanese government won't want to admit they allowed or even aided in these abductions, they can forget extraditing."

"What do we do about the institution's backers?" asked Lucy. "I don't want to see this start up all over again."

"That's a harder one, this would be more CIA territory, and I've lost count of the number of times I've stepped on their toes," said Wanda, "we could try looking for bank statements and other things in the director's office, that might give us the information to pursue them."

"Façade could return to Japan mainland while we extract the diclonii," said Callisto, "he'd be best equipped to look for anything that could identify who of what organisation approved the money transfers."

"Then what?" asked Lucy.

"Find out who he's conspiring with, who's likely to replace him, before we do anything, be it assassination, public disgrace, whatever, we need to take out anyone with the intention and in a position to restart or continue this thing," said Callisto.

"We could also do with a computer hacker," said Tiffany.

[Change Of Scenery]

"Well, this is the guy that approved the money transfers," said Charles as they sat at a table in a sushi bar, "I can rig a permanent party line so that we can record all conversations on his phone, then do the same with anyone he calls we think might be involved."

"Right," said Daria. She seemed despondent.

"Then I could turn into a flea, enter your panties, and turn into an electric eel inside your vagi-"

"I'm paying attention, Charles, I'm just thinking about the amount of time all this has been going on, the first hint of this has been sitting on a diclonius networking message board for a couple of years, all those times we were sitting around looking for things to do, and it didn't occur to any of us to see if anyone was abducting metas."

"Oh. That. Well, now we know we missed something all this time, what do you want to do about it?"

"Look," said Daria, "actually search these things out. … " she checked her watch and said "Haruka's about to have his emergency, I'm going to want to debrief him on the flight out if possible."

"Right."

[Change Of Scenery]

As they were alone in the Helo, Haruka had no reason not to tell Daria all he could remember.

"That assumes of course that we have all the locations of the metajammers," said Daria.

"There's something strange about this facility, the scientist that was showing me around said a lot of experiments seemed to get repeated seemingly for the hell of it. There also seemed to be a strange lack of progress on obvious leads. In addition to that, some areas are off limits to the scientists, officially it's where the main cache of Diclonius prisoners are being kept, but if the place is intended for research, then all the prisoners should be available, and they often end up down there after the experimentation's gone as far as it can."

"Could be a government minister has direct control over the research, we all know how silly they can be at times," said Daria.

"That's possible," said Haruka. "They also have Mandroids, elemental suits."

"Saw Mandroid tracks the first time I came. Get a count?"

"They have forty eight, twenty four in operation at any one time, eight groups of three."

"This is going to turn very overt very quick, those things usually come with psi-screams, those don't just dampen psionic attack, they snowball it and throw it right back at you. I think there's only one realistic way of clearing that island of enemy armour," said Daria.

[Change Of Scenery]

"All I gotta do is pull the operators out, stick ourselves in, and we can pretty much walk in through the front door," said Tiffany, "next thing we'll need to do is set off some fuel air grenades in the hanger, kill everyone who isn't us in the room."

"How do we sneak the fact we're chucking grenades about past them?" asked Callisto.

"We'll have to attach them to the outside, without them being visible," said Tiffany.

[Change Of Scenery]

"You want to steal a jet? We have a jet," said Charles.

"We have a jet that'll create an international incident," said Daria, "I want to use a JSDF eagle, loaded with AGM130s for the metajammers shafts, I don't want to cave the sides in, so they have to be the smallest AGM130 available, the warhead's about the right size to blow all the units out the top like grape shot without affecting anyone inside the facility. I'd prefer something even smaller like a BLU107, but I can't aim those from the altitude I want to launch them from, they have to be guided."

The AGM130 was slightly cartoonish in the way it was developed, basically a mk80 series bomb with a bolted on guidance system (like the paveway kit only this was more maverick shaped, combining optical image recognition with GPS), and a rocket motor on the side.

"Okay, what do we do once the mandroids and the metajammers are out?" asked Charles.

"There's no way around manually entering the facility and at least opening all the doors, we can't use confinement mist without also trapping the prisoners, I think we're going to have to use the prisoners to assist in their own rescue, problem is that most these guys have no escape and evasion training, or may be in such a state that they'll attack us too. Or fail to seize the initiative."

"You could use your mental powers," said Charles.

"I could, problems are that some of the guards may have received counter-psi training, and I have no idea what my ability will be towards a diclonius, we'll probably find out anyway, but I want to do something else if I can."

"What are you thinking?" asked Charles.

"Well, the means by which I want to procure the F15 could also give us the means by which we transport them out of there, I might be able to make the base commander order some pilots to fly helos over there and pick them up. There is a chance one or more of them will kill the pilots, crash the whole vehicle, but we should be able to get them onto a nearby US base, that takes them out of Japanese jurisdiction, we will need to have the US base use a metajammers while the diclonii cool down, we may have another problem," said Daria.

"What's that?" asked Charles.

"The number of prisoners is way above the number that were abducted through that message board several fold," said Daria, "some of them could have grown up in that facility, the effects of that could be completely unknown."

"It sounds like what we're going to have to do is sedate the whole lot of them and carry the prisoners out," said Charles.

"If I can have the JSDF base commander order helos in, I can have him or her order more people to carry the prisoners to the helos," said Daria.

"Okay, but how about the US base commander? Which of those within the range of a Chinook will accept a bunch of refugees from a bunch of Japanese helos?" asked Charles.

[Change Of Scenery]

"Daria, just one question before I even think about considering pulling rank on some base CO on the other side of the Pacific," said General Armalin, "have you been smoking anything whose chemical name begins with an M or a P recently?"

[Change Of Scenery]

"Only possible solution I can think of is to physically remove the data stores," said Tiffany, "get those to SHIELD, we can figure out if the Diclonii we're chasing have ever been there, it'll also tell us how many other pies this Kakuzawa guy's got his fingers in." Having nailed down the rest of the plan, Tiffany and Wanda had gotten onto the original point of their assignment, "if it comes down to the data or the rescue, we have to put the rescue first, I may not be green berets, but I at least got that much sense."

"Okay. What do you make of Lucy's relationship with Kouta and Nana?" asked Wanda.

"Kouta and Nana are … how'd they forgive Lucy so easily?" asked Tiffany.

"Maybe you could ask them," said Wanda.

"Or you, you started this conversation."

"Okay, what do you make of Bando?"

"I get his sentiment, but he spent two years over watching the Maple Inn? If I thought my target might return permanently, I'd dip in and out, there's got to be easier ways to go about this."

"So you would pursue this," said Wanda.

"Absolutely, might have to put it off a while, but sometimes a cold trail makes the target complacent," said Tiffany.

"You realise that if Kouta and Nana followed your philosophy, the operation wouldn't have started, right?" asked Wanda.

"It's not a philosophy, it's … … It's more a hobby, and the people I'm after are enemy combatants who have killed members of my fire team, I mean, I'm the lone survivor of that, and I'm no good at popularity contests anyway without my former friends in the Legion, I mean, I'm the only one who survives, how do I look to the rest of the team? I gotta close this up."

"Or they won't trust you?" asked Wanda.

"Exactly," said Tiffany, "that's dangerous for operations, I order them to do something and they don't do it, some of them could die."

"What'll you do if no one on your team trusts you?" asked Wanda.

"Well, a petty officer with no one to command might as well be a seaman, but then if none of the non-coms want me on their team, I don't get to do much more than logistics. I don't want to quit the Navy, I might join another branch, Army, Marines, but it won't be a fresh start because my service record would come with me. I could still retain my Non-com rank, but I'd still need to win over the officers over me."

"How many operations have gone right prior to this one that went wrong?" asked Wanda.

"All of them," said Tiffany.

"Don't you think you're worrying over nothing here? Your CO's point of view, you have a good track record, it's unusual for the rest of your team to be carried home in boxes. Same with those who could serve under you."

"Well, yeah, statistically, I'm good, but statistically, so are most the superstars that have even the slightest thing go wrong in the public eye."

"Oh you gotta be crapping me," groaned Wanda, "Tiffany, this is not the world of celebrity, okay? How you dress at parties and what kind of verbal gaffes you commit is not that important, well, except where a mission rides on it, but the main point is can you fight?"

"Well … … wait … a … minute … … Wanda, was it your idea or my CO's to have me attached to you for this operation?"

Wanda eventually said "Fury's actually. He heard you were in the crap, and weren't getting out. You are going to have to open up to your shrink though, or you're still in the crap."

"Right, right," said Tiffany. "let's get back on the propulsion system shall we?"

"Right," said Wanda.

They got up and went to the room where they were building everything.

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria was about to enter the office when a van came to a stop beside her.

The suddenness drew her attention, especially when the door opened and two occupants with stun guns leaned forth.

She sidestepped one, getting out of reach of the other, grabbing the stun gun of the closest one and using it to stun the other.

With the other guy out, an elbow strike to the side of the closest man's neck allowed her to stun him with his own weapon.

She then opened the closest front door and entered the van, stunning the driver.

[Change Of Scenery]

Kenta Kaori woke up trying to remember the almighty piss up that had led to his hangover.

Then re remembered that it wasn't a night on the piss, it was his target using his own stun gun on him.

He also realised he was lying on the floor of the van they were using to snatch her with.

He opened his eyes and saw their target sitting there with an air horn.

"Where's Haruka?" asked Daria.

"What?" asked Kenta.

Daria held the air horn right next to his ear hole and gave his ear a blast.

"AAAOOOOWWWW! FUCKING HELL!" The pain lingered too much.

"By the way, while you were asleep, I stuck a massive dose of nitro pills down your throat, you're not really in danger from it, but you're suffering from a condition commonly referred to as 'Bang Head', so, where's Haruka?"

"You think I'm going to tell you?"

Daria give his ear hole another blast.

"YOU THINK I'M GOING TO BETRAY MY COUNTRY FOR AN ABBARANT SUCH AS YOURSELF OR YOUR TRAITOR FRIEND?"

Daria gave him another blast.

"FUCK YOU!"

Another blast.

"DOUBLE FUCK YOU!"

This went on for a while, but then the blasts got a bit too weak.

Kenta chuckled as Daria removed the top and set the can aside.

He stopped laughing when Daria pulled a shrink wrapped bundle of air horn cans, pulled the next can through the opening she had cut to remove the first one. He counted twelve across and about 24 along, making the total number 240 plus 48, 288. Minus the one she had used.

He let out a whine as Daria attached the horn to the next can. She then leaned forth and said "If you feel like trying your luck, he's at 225 Aina Pass, but you'll never get away with this."

"Actually, your line should be something along the lines of, 'I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling good guys,' excuse me a minute," said Daria as she stepped out the van.

He set to work on getting himself free. He knew that the address was a safe house with so such firepower that they couldn't possibly be defeated.

[Change Of Scenery]

"All right, listen up, we have one chance to catch the Yakuza with their pants down, let's not fuck it up," said the SAT commander, he went on to describe the Yakuza facility at 225 Aina Pass where an anonymous tip had said several tons of assault rifles and rounds of ammunition were being assembled for the Yakuza to use to take control of Kamakura. Ballsy fuckers.

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria entered the van and threw a pair of scissors across Kenta, they bounced off the still sleeping form behind him and landed next to Kenta's hand.

"Disadvantage of deniability: Getting the police to do what you like is a pain in the ass. The news agencies covering the police raid on what the police think is a Yakuza weapons smuggling operation ALL have undercover journalists penetrating criminal and government organisations, so Haruka penetrating your concentration camp has too many parallels to their own operations for your government to win any sympathy, and then there's the voting public who don't like the idea of the government running amok abducting citizens off the street whenever they feel like it. Good luck finding a new job."

With that, Daria was out of there.

[Change Of Scenery]

'This could be a problem,' thought Daria, Japanese spooks all over them, they would need to figure out a way to lose them in order to get Daria onto the JSDF base. Well, the fact Daria hadn't been interdicted when driving off with this bunch of idiots told her she had already lost them.

Charles would be the Plan B in the event that the cops wilted to the authority of the spooks that were holding Haruka.

One of the people he learned how to impersonate was the director of intelligence, this situation hadn't been considered during the planning of this operation, but there were some useful side effects such as this.

[Change Of Scenery]

The submarine was now built.

They had used polyester resin and glass matt from a nearby Halfords to seal the hull (in this case the speed at which polyester resin sets is an advantage), and hot melt glue had about the correct properties to seal the hatch, Vaseline to prevent adherence to the hatch surface, the door jamb surface had a lip that the hot glue would freeze around, water pressure would press the hatch against the seal, and the seal would be locked solid around the jamb, provided they don't exceed the actual crush depth, that should keep the water out.

By the time they got to the harbour, the whole thing would be sufficiently set that they can dive at least enough to hide, and by the time they reached the island, the PVA would be fully cured, so they can then go to their full crush depth of five metres.

They had the option of pressurising the hull to with their compressed air stores, they had triple the capacity needed for the ballast tanks and could always drop the emergency ballast if they had to. They still didn't want to have to make decompression stops, so they could only use that to fifteen metres.

The varnish could have done with more time to fully set, but they would have that time during the infiltration of the facility.

All they were waiting for now was Tiffany, Lucid and Lucy.

Callisto heard Tiffany say "here we are," from within the hummer as it turned onto the street that led past the back door of the B&Q loading bay, and pushed the button to open the door.

Tiffany got out through the door without opening it and pulled a crate out through the wall of the hummer.

She opened the lid and removed a "PFT M4, 3750 rounds at setting 1, 50 rounds at setting 11, we want to preserve surprise as much as we can, so stay off shock and skip modes, that's anything with a crescent in it," she said, pointing out the fire mode selector.

"What else did you get?" asked Callisto.

Tiffany pulled out another crate and opened it. "Fuel Air grenades, we rig them in camouflage netting and some branches, make it look like the mandroid snagged some forest trash on its way, soon as we're in the hanger, we pull the branch off the lead mandroid, string will be tied to a length of wire, not the original pin, pin's pull force is too high for this, so we need to replace the pin with a piece of wire that'll slide right out."

"How do we stop the handle getting snagged on the net?" asked Callisto.

"We cut it off, once we replace the pin," said Tiffany, "We'll need to replace the pins here but we can't attach the grenades to the branches until we're on the island because moving the branches with the grenades attached is too dangerous."

She then pulled another crate and opened it, showing them "Zip line handles, prisoners ride the zip line to the submarine."

"I just hope we have the room for them all," said Lucy, "I don't want to have to leave people behind."

Tiffany pulled another crate out of the hummer. Inside were packs marked "banana boats. Hook them up to the submarine, expand our capacity."

"Banana boats. … What in the world is a military warehouse doing stocking banana boats?" asked Callisto.

"I dunno, covert insertion perhaps?" suggested Tiffany.

After a few seconds, Wanda, Callisto, and Lucy started chuckling.

"Banana boats," said Wanda.

"How'd you disguise the armament you want to carry?" asked Callisto.

"Fluorescent green and pink paint scheme," said Tiffany, "make your weapons look like squirt guns."

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria had managed to get the base commander under her spell. She had managed to get him to order the armaments loaded onto JA-235V, an F15 strike eagle.

Bit old school, but Daria was confident she could operate it.

She had also arranged for the helos to be loaded with drop tanks, that should give them the range to reach Korea.

In about half an hour, the aircraft should be ready.

[Change Of Scenery]

As they approached the harbour, Tiffany hit the button that would light the smoke generators.

She drove the truck through the gate, scaring the faeces out of the security guard, and went straight for the water. She hit the transmit button and said "brace brace brace," she entered the truck into a turn, this was done to ensure a clean separation of the submarine from the flatbed.

The submarine would roll off the side of the truck as the truck fell off the pier, this was why they had reinforced the hull with so much steel wire, so it could take the moment that would occur when the submarine entered the water.

As soon as the truck was in the water, Tiffany simply phased through the truck and swam to the submarine as it rocked. She phased through the submarine and when she had established everyone was okay, she ordered "Everyone take stations."

Lucid took ballast control, Nana took control planes, Calaban the throttles, Callisto was their sonar system, Tiffany turned on the periscope system, the array of cyber cams was set up in an overlapping array of 12, there was a selector switch that allowed her to select which she was looking out through. There was also a compass and a sat-nav system whose antenna had been rewired so that it would be on the periscope. They also had speedometers suitable for watercraft.

The helm station had another compass. The sat-nav was a maritime model, so she didn't have to worry about the thing trying to jump to the nearest road or anything like that.

"Helm, head one eight zero, periscope depth, five zero knots," ordered Tiffany.

They did this, the yaw rotation helped dampen the roll oscillation.

Lucid worked on adjusting the ballast. Nana would use the elevators to control the depth as Lucid would work the ballast system until it was as close to neutral as he could get it.

Tiffany rotated the switch through the views making sure no one was visually paying attention to them.

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria finished checking the weapons were secure.

In addition to the AGM130s, she had four AGM88s in case she comes up against air defences, and Hydra 70 rocket pods in case they had really good air defences (I.E. Block B1 CIWS), the rockets (WDU 4/A fletchette warhead, delay fused) would be fired before the HARMs to clutter the enemy radar, like fast moving chaff, keep the CIWS attention until the HARMs are too close for the CWIS to acquire. The F15 has that capacity, she also had an ECM pod, that would stop anyone asking the JSDF what was going on while Daria strafed the radio antennae cluster.

It was time to do it.

Officially she was taking the jet on exercise, her name had been recorded as Lieutenant Shizuka Michi, and she's supposed to take this aircraft to a bomb range at least an hour away. By the time she's supposed to have arrived at her destination, she'll be long gone.

She got on board and went through the start up procedure, and then went through the arming procedure.

Eventually she was ready. "Tower from Juliet Alpha Two Three Five Victor, request departure clearance, over?"

"Juliet Alpha Two Three Five Victor, cleared for departure, taxi to runway zero three and hold, over."

[Change Of Scenery]

Having parked the submarine, they left Nana in command of the submarine. She could operate the entire submarine from command station because of her vectors, everyone else was attacking.

The pain in the ass part of this was predicting mandroid movements. Fact is they can't, so they place Caliban, Cybil and Lucid with the equipment roughly between the intended ambush zone and the facility, Tiffany sneaks up with Torpid, they remove the operators from their machines, knock them out, then Tiffany, Wanda and Spyke board the machines. Callisto and Lucy would be somewhere else planting negator packs on some of the other mandroids, create a problem that all the other mandroids have to investigate.

Hopefully this'll all be put down to maintenance cock-ups, and not an attack.

As soon as all the mandroids were reduced to outrageously expensive paperweights, Tiffany and Callisto would have to locate the metajammers, problem with that was that the metajammers could be anywhere within the footprint, they would need someone to tell them where the metajammers are.

Lucy and Callisto each had a PFT, a thermic lance with spare magnesium pipes and oxygen bottles, 40kg of C4 in 1kg bricks, 12 stun grenades, this load had been split between them all as they had landed, they'd have to deposit it in places for manoeuvrability, and pick it up when they need it, problem Lucy and Callisto have is they need all of it when they enter the facility.

Torpid Caliban and Cybil would provide a diversion and peel across the island in order to draw attention away from Callisto and Lucy, laying down smoke to hide Lucy and Caliban's approach, they peel across the island to where they had set up some confinement mist grenades, each had their own hellbox that would detonate the same charges.

What Caliban, Torpid and Cybil will then run round around the facility and join the attack.

Tiffany and Torpid heard the mandroids, they approached the mandroids from behind. Tiffany quickly removed all three, Torpid quickly followed up by knocking them out.

Tiffany now phased Wanda and Spyke into their Mandroids and she boarded her own.

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria was hugging the ocean as she approached her target. She would need to be in a near vertical dive to place the bombs where she wanted them to go.

This was going to be one screw of a high G recovery. She also had to keep in mind that this was a different aircraft from the L1 she was used to doing this in.

She lit the burners and pulled into her climb. In about 30 seconds or so, she would stall at about 70 or 80 angels, and hopefully she would be right over her target. She had also gotten the base commander to order on some RATO bottles so that when the air breathing engines started to struggle, she'd have something anaerobic to use.

She watched as the number representing altitude ran through all the thousands of feet.

At 50 angels, she was at 85 degrees pitch. She lit the RATO bottles, boosting her speed.

On the map on the HDD, she watched the island move underneath her. She increased pitch to 87 degrees, she might have to stall loop, that was the worst case scenario.

Another HDD was set to FLIR, set to the waterline and zoomed in as far as it would go, that should give her enough accuracy to first of all nail the metajammers.

Then she pulls out and makes a final run, shooting air defences as needed, strafe the antennae on the roof, and use the aircraft to break in. Hope that was all the comm systems there, because once the aircraft was disposed of, that would be it for the ECM pod.

85032ft. Cool. The aircraft nosed over into its dive. Daria first used a mind blast to set off any Psi screams the might have. With the metajammers down, she should have the ability to get the mandroid operators to goof off for the next day or five.

Next were the AGM130s. She got through those. She did have to correct the target positions before she could assign each AGM130, this was taking more time than she'd have liked, but this was the only run she was going to get without them using their CWIS kit to disrupt the bombs, she was down to 45000ft before she started cycling through the targets and releasing each AGM130. All AGM130s released, Daria pulled back, lowering the flaps, straining hard against the rubber bar and the air in her lungs to stay awake.

[Change Of Scenery]

"What was that?" asked Lucy.

"Airstrike, aircraft launched missiles, they had a long delay fuse, it took ages for their warheads to detonate," said Callisto, "it was that jet that overflew us just now."

"We saw a Legion jet at Haneda," said Lucy.

"That weren't Legion, Legion uses L1s, single engine, intake over the cockpit, winglets bent down, what I saw diving at us had level wings, two engines, intakes either side of the cockpit, I think it was an F15, it had JSDF roundels," said Callisto, "someone infiltrated the JSDF in order to kill our enemy."

"Doesn't necessarily mean they're our friend, just means they hate these guys too. … I can sense them."

"Who?" asked Callisto.

"The resident diclonii, all of them … … Aww hell, there's way more than we can transport even with the banana boats."

"Okay, we'll rescue who we can release everyone else, figure something out later," said Callisto. Callisto didn't look too pleased with this choice.

They then heard a loud buzzing noise as a LOT of tracer flew through the sky.

Then four missiles streaked the other way, and the tracer stopped.

They then heard a very steeply Dopplered jet noise. They then saw a flash of fire over them. The jet apparently continued on to collide with the facility.

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria could sense two people about 40 metres from her as she landed.

They were in pain from something.

Daria pulled her PFT Mk 2 as she advanced to knock them out.

She was stopped by an invisible force around her throat. Another invisible forge pulled the PFT out of her hand.

Two individuals approached her. One was a Caucasian woman with an eye patch, the other was a pale looking woman, both were dressed in DPM suited for forest warfare, matching face paint, they were heavily loaded with kit.

She had no choice but to enter their minds and hope they weren't trained to mentally render psychics catatonic.

They were metas, one was even a diclonius.

"What the hell is Tiffany doing here?" asked Daria.

"You know about our operation?" asked Callisto.

"I do now, I COULD HAVE KILLED YOU! WHAT THE HELL WAS TIFFANY THINKING?"

"SHE WAS THINKING THAT THERE WAS NO ONE ELSE WHO GAVE A DAMN FLYING CRAP ABOUT THE REALITY OF WHAT IS GOING ON IN PLACES LIKE THIS!" said Callisto, "YOU LEGIONNAIRES LIVE IN YOUR GLASS TOWER WITH YOUR LUXERIES, AND YOU HAVE NO SCREWING CLUE WHAT'S GOING ON IN THE REAL WORLD!"

"WHAT? JUST BECAUSE IT TOOK A WHILE TO COME ACROSS THIS? HAS IT OCCURRED TO YOU THAT WHEREVER WE START, WE ALWAYS HAVE TO PUT SOMETHING ELSE OFF UNTIL WE GOT THE FIRST JOBS OUT THE WAY? THIS IS A WORLD OF FAECES, AND WE HAVE A LIMITED NUMBER OF PEOPLE WITH WHICH WE CAN EQUIP WITH SHOVELS AND DEPLOY!" replied Daria.

Callisto had no answer.

Daria used her psychic powers to make Lucy release Daria's throat and return her firearm.

"What?" asked Lucy wondering what just happened.

"Come on," said Daria as she took point and approached the facility.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany, Spyke and Wanda had just about made it into a suitable room when that F15 had come straight for them.

"Now what?" asked Wanda.

"It'd help if I could ph-" said Tiffany as she pushed her hand against a wall and felt it slide through. " … Hmm," she shrugged as she retracted her hand, picked up a flash bang, she then threw that through the wall saying "hang on."

They grabbed her shoulders and Tiffany led them through the wall.

On full auto, they knocked out all 50 of the guards assembled in the room.

"Not that I'm complaining, but who shut down the metajammers?" asked Wanda.

"Who cares?" asked Spyke.

"I do, I care that the metajammers stay down and can't be turned back on again," said Tiffany.

"Let's find them first," said Wanda.

"Right," said Tiffany, "let's find the security office."

[Change Of Scenery]

Callisto saw the fire still raging in the reception area. "Daria, Tiffany had better be alive."

"She is, I can sense her now," said Daria as she thought cast '**Tiffany, Daria, comm check.**'

'**Daria from Tiffany, would you mind explaining to me what you're playing at, over?'**

'**The release of the metas being held here and any possible leads regarding those two metas what killed your unit, over.**'

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany saw a plaque saying 'Director General', she poked her head through and stepped back, saying "One X-ray holding a Yankee at gun point," as she pulled another flash-bang.

The other two grabbed Tiffany's shoulders as Tiffany chucked the grenade through the wall, after enough time had elapsed, Tiffany advanced with Spyke and Wanda in tow, Tiffany knocked the bald man with the horns out and they approached the woman in the lab coat and the glasses.

"IDENTIFY YOURSELF!" said Tiffany, as Spyke secured the horned man's weapon and set about restraining him.

"Arakawa, please don't kill me, I want to help," she said, "The director general's insane, he wants to use diclonii to take over the world."

"By locking them up?" asked Tiffany.

"By driving them insane, he does experiments on them not to gather data on them, but to make them hate humans, he then sticks them in isolation to stew until he thinks he has enough to release. I'll show you where the servers are, it'll tell you everything you need."

"Right, give me a second," said Tiffany, she then thought '**Daria, Tiffany, receiving?**'

'**Tiffany, Daria, go ahead**.'

'**Talking to a white coat called Arakawa, says her boss was building a diclonii army for world domination**.'

'**That might explain a few things, Lucy's sensing a prison population too large for you to spring, I got helos coming in.**'

'**Right, Arakawa's leading me to the server farm, home in on me.**'

'**Right.**'

"Right, let's move."

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany, Spyke, Arakawa and Wanda met Daria, Callisto and Lucy outside the door to the server room.

"So, I'm over the top am I?" asked Tiffany.

"Once you take a prisoner, the ROEs change," said Daria.

"You weren't taking prisoners just now when you were dropping HE bombs, were you?"

"That's because I'm not really here," said Daria.

"Neither are we," said Tiffany. "By the way, if they don't have a backup drive, I'm taking the data. My people who aren't really here outnumber your people who aren't really here."

"There, is, a backup drive, actually," said Arakawa.

" … Fine, let's get it. Then we're releasing all the prisoners," said Tiffany.

"We got another problem," said Lucy, "grab your data, then I'll go into more detail."

Arakawa looked at Lucy.

"What?" asked Lucy.

"You're Lucy, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"What happened to your horns?"

"Battle damage. Help these two with that server."

"Right," said Arakawa as she entered the room, Tiffany and Daria in tow.

As soon as Tiffany and Daria had removed their hard drives from the server, sticking them in their shielded anti-static foam lined cases, they headed for the stairs.

"Some of these diclonii are pissed off, and I mean, really pissed off. They're not going to care who can help them, they'll kill everyone."

"Can you tell them from the ones that can control themselves?" asked Daria.

"Yes," said Lucy.

"Get them out now, I got JSDF helos for the rest, they'll be sedated and moved to a US airbase in Korea."

"Why's the JSDF moving them to Korea?" asked Tiffany.

"Because I made a JSDF base commander tell them to," said Daria.

"Nice," said Tiffany, "how long does that give us?"

Daria checked her watch, "half an hour."

"Christ, Daria, don't give us much time."

The accelerated their run down the stairs.

[Change Of Scenery]

As the rescue progressed, they dressed the prisoners in clothes they had taken from the JSDF depot as they exited the facility, Cybil, Caliban and Torpid set up the zip line to the submarine. The submarine filled up quickly.

Nana directed some of the new arrivals to start inflating the banana boats.

"You gotta be kidding," one of the Diclonii said as the watercraft took shape.

"It's what we got," said Nana.

[Change Of Scenery]

Eventually Lucy had taken them past all the remaining Diclonii. "Okay, that's it, we're done, Daria can move the rest of these, we're not set up for them."

"Okay," said Daria.

As they started back up the stairs, Tiffany asked "so, what's going to happen this time Daria?"

"What do you mean?"

"Every time lately that I've had any contact with the Legion lately, SOMETHING gets taken away from me. I break you and Jane out of Wyatt's place, I get relegated to reserve Legionnaire, I shut down the metajammers that were endangering you in that rainforest, I GET BOOTED OUT THE RESERVES AND PUT ON SOME PSYCHOLOGICAL COURSE!"

Daria calmly responded "I'm starting to think Jane's right, you are irresponsible. YOU break Posse commutates, you get relegated to reserve Legionnaire, YOU attempt to kill a prisoner in our custody, you get booted out the Legion and put on some psychological course."

"I thought I was supposed to be able to trust you," said Tiffany.

"Yeah, well, maybe I forgot to mention my condition for your trust: Don't sponge," responded Daria.

"I'm sponging am I?" asked Tiffany, "How about one minute supporting self defence, then opposing it, then- which side are you on?"

"The side of reason," said Daria.

"THE HELL YOU ARE!" said Tiffany.

This point Lucy turned around and slapped them both across the back of their heads with her vectors saying "Urge to kill: Rising. How about you two stop this untillll, sayyyy, I DON'T HAVE TO PUT UP WITH IT! … SOUND GOOD?"

"Fine," Daria and Tiffany chorused. They then continued on out.

Lucy, Tiffany, Wanda and the Morlocks descended along the zip line, and boarded the submarine.

They started to hear the sound of heavy rotorcraft approaching as they detached the zip line, Daria detached the point at the top of the cliff.

Tiffany stood in the conning tower and ordered "Helm, head two two zero, one zero knots."

She watched the banana boats as the lines became taught, there were two rows of banana boats attached to a triangular scaffolding frame clamped around the conning tower.

Eventually Tiffany said "Helm, three zero knots."

Once Tiffany was satisfied that everything was okay, she descended to the command station, securing the hatch behind her and said "Helm, periscope depth, mil thrust."

[Change Of Scenery]

Commander Arata Kimiko was bored as he peered out through the periscope of his Hamashio class submarine. He supposed boring was good for politicians, but he wanted to break the routine with something.

He then saw something moving across his field of view. There was about 20 banana boats with no apparent tug.

The boats had a large number of people, men and women with pink hair and horns, all dressed identically in disruptive pattern suits and flotation vests.

"Great, I'm so bored I'm hallucinating."

He kept panning the periscope around.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany spotted a container ship heading towards Hawaii and had the helm take them to a position ahead of the ship. With the submarine keeping station ahead of the ship, Tiffany and Wanda had jumped into the water and Tiffany phased them both through the ship's hull. They took control of the bridge so there would be no comm traffic.

Then Callisto would order Nana to let the ship catch up with them, the diclonii transferred from the banana boats to the boat, using their vectors to climb up on top of the mountains of containers. Their vectors being invisible, the Diclonii appeared to be flying.

They had brought their own food along in order to help them keep the peace between themselves and the ship's crew, MRE packs from the JSDF depot, sleeping bags so they could sleep outside.

This ship was headed for Hawaii.

With everyone and everything on board, Nana opened the air vents on the ballast tanks, setting thrust to zero, she was out the hatch well before the submarine dropped away into the ocean. She ascended the side of the ship and joined the other diclonii.

She then went over to the bridge to talk to Tiffany and Wanda.

[Change Of Scenery]

Charles, having picked Daria up from the island, landed in a South Korean airport instead of the US airbase that the JSDF helos had been transporting the Diclonii that Tiffany wasn't capable of controlling. This was an attempt to be all "Oh, there's a bunch of refugees arriving on a US base? What a surprise," when approached with the news.

Well, it would be transparent, but legally, it might just be enough to prevent Daria and Charles undergoing extradition to Japan for theft and destruction of Japanese government property.

Not that either of them had left the Japanese much to work with to begin with, and the fact remained that the Japanese government had been committing a crime against humanity, there'd probably be quite a bit of psychotherapy needed to get the diclonii evacuated to North Korea in any shape to testify.

Daria and Charles now had to work on the drive they had taken. They needed to figure out what information they had, the two diclonii mercenaries were still a priority, but there might also be information that could tell the people at the base what happened to the mental patients they now held.

The medics were keeping the individuals sedated in anticipation of a C17 transport that would move them all to Hawaii, where they would meet up with personal from USAES that could assist in stabilising them, but there was a major concern that a lot of them could end up simply transferring from one prison to another.

[Change Of Scenery]

"Once we've got these diclonii to Hawaii, can I return to Kouta?" asked Nana.

"Well, we'd have to sneak you in, after that fireworks display I can't imagine security at the airports being relaxed," said Wanda.

"I see," said Nana.

"You could probably request asylum along with the other diclonii," said Wanda.

"And then what?" asked Nana.

"INS helps you find a place to leave and a job to sustain yourself by," said Wanda. Wanda saw Tiffany run across a gap in the containers and said "Callisto, I'm going to be off the bridge for a while, you mind watching over everything?"

"No, go ahead," said Callisto.

Wanda left the bridge and caught up with Tiffany.

They had all since cleared their faces of the paint, but ALL only had one set of clothes, so they were all taking Tiffany's advice on how to maintain some semblance of hygiene WHEN only equipped with one change of clothes.

Wanda had questions relating to something else entirely.

"Tiffany, that conversation you had with Daria, what the hell was that about?"

"What do you mean?"

"You were displacing blame onto Daria like a five year old brat throwing a tantrum," said Wanda.

"I … … … Yes, I was displacing blame onto Daria like a five year old, you happy?"

"Provided our conversation leads to some self improvement, do you need to displace blame to be able to function? Because if that's how you handle disaster, you've no business holding any leadership position," said Wanda.

"I know," said Tiffany.

"Then why-"

"BECAUSE I WAS PISSED OFF!" Admitted Tiffany.

"At Daria or the Legion in general."

"Daria's been like a bad luck charm lately," said Tiffany.

"What, like those Goth kids that get put in that glass box on the roof every time a tornado risk presented to a certain school?" asked Wanda.

"THAT'S THE PATTERN THAT'S PRESENTED LATELY!" said Tiffany.

"Ho-kay, let me tell you, about a polymorph named Mystique, who did EVERYTHING SHE COULD TO AVOID TAKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR HER ACTIONS, UNTIL EVEN HER OWN KIDS WANT NOTHING TO DO WITH HER!"

Tiffany stopped and said "WILL YOU SHUT UP ALREADY? ALL I HEAR LATELY IS EVERYONE REMINDING ME OF HOW DEEP IN THE CRAP I AM! CHANGE THE RECORD ALREADY!"

" … … I suppose you're also sick of hearing about how there's always hope too," said Wanda.

Tiffany resumed running.

Wanda kept up.

"FYI: I know it was Stacy that convinced your CO to halt the investigation in favour of psychological counselling."

"What of it?" asked Tiffany.

"It's your one chance to stay out of prison," said Wanda.

"No it's not, it's no chance, well, that's not entirely accurate, it's a way out of prison, but it'll lead to an administrative separation, and what happens then?"

"What's going to prompt you getting fired?" asked Wanda.

"My concern for my reputation if I don't get back at those bastards that killed my team! Yes, we talked through that already, but the fact is I'm so used to danger to life that I just don't react to people dying, I'm more concerned about my damn career path than I am about the welfare of my own people!"

"Ah. Right," said Wanda. "It's still a dislike of losses, you're still motivated to win, and you love war, Tiffany, you're afraid to open up because you think your shrink has no idea, if that were a civilian shrink, you'd be crap out of luck, but your shrink's a naval officer, right?"

"Wanda, we're Navy, not Marines, there's a large number of personal in the navy that would be afraid to pick up a gun, forget kill someone with it."

"And you think they'd put a psychiatrist in charge of assessing special forces without making sure they can tell the psychos from the soldiers?" asked Wanda, "they gotta want to retain capable personal."

"Wanda, every time I've heard of anyone undergoing a psychological review, I never hear from them again. We kill, for a living. Some of us even enjoy it. Military background or not, what do you reckon any clinical psychologist would make of that?"

"Maybe you need a different shrink," said Wanda.

"Like who?" asked Tiffany, "My admiral would have to approve the appointment of the psychologist."

"General Armalin? He's a qualified psychologist and has special forces background," asked Wanda.

"I spent a long time training under him, what if his impartiality gets challenged?" asked Tiffany.

"A lot of people spent a long time training under him, what makes you special?" asked Wanda.

"I used to be a Legionnaire, he took a liking to the Legion, it could be argued-" started Tiffany.

"Okay, okay, okay, I think I've spotted another problem here: You're not a JAG lawyer are you?" Asked Wanda.

"No," said Tiffany.

"Have you talked to one?" asked Wanda.

"Think I could be this open with one without them wanting me out the SEALs?" asked Tiffany.

"You'd get a specialist for anything else you can't do yourself on an operation, why should this be any different?" asked Wanda.

"Well … … " Tiffany struggled to answer. "Same problem I have with the shrink I guess, anything I share could have unforeseen consequences."

"Don't this fear appear every time you go on operations?" asked Wanda.

"Physical war is based on reality, how the enemy can behave with what number of personal and what quantity of resources, I get to kill the enemy, that stops them bothering me again, and it's possible to plan to counter multiple possibilities in one go, but legal and psychoanalysis is based on perception, it's like … … well … making something stylish for a fashion show run by cosplay convention judges," said Tiffany.

"Okay, that's the situation, can you do anything about it?"

"Still working."

"This were a battle plan, what do you do when you run out of time?"

The answer was obvious: "Go with whatever I got."

"Good answer. … And consult a lawyer, anyone who represents themselves in court has an idiot for a client," said Wanda.

[Change Of Scenery]

"Running facial recognition now," said Jodie. It took a few seconds of scrolling down all the thumbnails for Jodie to say "not that it'll give us anything."

"How'd the other thing pan out?" asked Daria.

"We seem to have a pattern of movement going back four years, mostly in South America and Africa, they even messed around with India, Pakistan and Chechnya a few times. I think we have a start, where they might have first met their precog, but the trail is Bose Einstein condensate cold. Stacy and Brittany went over there to check things out, we could really do with you over there, that's our best chance of exploiting any memories any of the locals have."

"Any diclonii known to have been born over there?" asked Daria.

"Hospital databases show no diclonii born, but in spite of what you said, home births can't be ruled out, but then why aren't there any diclonii ultrasounds?" asked Jodie.

"Mother was too embarrassed," said Daria, "what about adoptions?"

"Nope."

"Families with diclonii kids?" asked Daria.

"Nope."

"And we've checked all criminal records exhaustively, so these two either committed no prior offences or were never caught … … murders, assaults, any in the area include dismemberment, possibly with questions over the weapon used?" asked Daria.

"No … However, it just occurred to me to look through theft crime files," said Jodie.

"Anything from that?" asked Daria.

"There's about 200 reported thefts where the complainants ultimately got done for fraud, court records show insistent pleas of not guilty, appeals even after the convictions were spent, some of these guys went on to develop drink, drug and vandalism habits following the price of fraud convictions where no one with any sense will hire you, anyone with telekinesis capabilities can break in undetected and forensically clean," said Jodie, "it could be by this point they were highly skilled thieves."

"Hmm … are there any cases where diclonii weren't outright wanted but were persons of interest from the point of view that they were potential witnesses?" asked Daria.

"Not in the local area, but expanding the search, we have upward of 100 cases. Thing is they're thieves, they know their heads would stand out, and would compensate accordingly, however, that means hats big enough to conceal their horns, head gear, maybe hair dye and coloured contact lenses," said Jodie.

"What's the town we're talking about?" asked Daria.

"Garden City, Kansas, they got an airport, but it's out of town," said Jodie.

"Okay, soon as we're fuelled up, we're going to head over there," said Daria. She looked at the airport location on the map. "I hope their metro cops will allow us to use their helipad."

[Change Of Scenery]

The diversion went off beautifully. Val and Sal set off the charges. The holes in the floors formed. They had set up ladders, fixing them into the concrete they had plastered onto the sides of the tunnel.

Their vectors had made digging the tunnel well easy, the apparent strength of their vectors seemed to grow out of all proportion to their own body strength, although finding places to put the excavated soil was a pain in the ass. As soon as the ground floor levels were clear, they stuck charges to the ceilings and set those off. Once the plugs had fallen, they rushed around sticking the next part of the ladders up.

Harman eventually came down the ladders, saying "I take it we have a gig?"

"Absolutely," said Val.

The rest of Harman's mercenaries assembled around Val and Sal.

"Okay then," said Harman, "let's hear it."

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany watched as the JSDF P3 Orion orbited at bridge level for the twelfth time.

She had removed the cap and the shirt from one of the crew and sent him downstairs so her appearance would seem less out of place.

"Get lost already," said Tiffany. This was getting annoying.

Eventually they climbed out and left.

"Can we get them above deck yet?" asked one of the crew from down the stairs.

"Not yet," said Callisto, also down stairs.

They had gotten all their gear below decks as well, they had to look like any normal cargo ship.

There was a concern that Tiffany's passport alias would come up from facial recognition software, but there was also a possibility they were looking for the diclonii themselves.

It was unlikely that the JSDF were stupid enough to think they would have it so easy, so they were probably using face recognition software.

There weren't many ways around it, Wanda had phoned SHIELD and their IT division had made it so that Tiffany's presence on the ship would make sense, but they couldn't delete Tiffany's entry into Japan, same with the Morlocks.

The biggest weak point was Bando, they had to drug him with LSD and PCP in a far away city, bit of luck, he would still be in a psych ward when they finally arrived in US waters.

Eventually Callisto said "Okay, we're clear, you can all go above deck now."

Below decks, the diclonii moving along the corridors with their vectors, filling every cube metre of space, seemingly flew out like a colony of bats.

Wanda returned to the bridge and said "bit strange they loitered that long. Would we be able to defend ourselves if attacked?"

"Anything I can see, I can shoot," said Callisto.

"Submarines could be a problem," said Tiffany.

"How so?" asked Callisto.

"Torpedoes," said Tiffany.

"Wouldn't we see those?" asked Wanda.

"No. Things have changed since world war two," said Tiffany, "A submarine could attack from hundreds of metres deep, sonar look up and look down is unlimited, and torpedoes are wire guided by the ship's computer, command detonated, and big. They'll be detonated at a distance of ten to fifteen metres from the hull, it'll break the ship in half instead of just poking a hole in the side. PFTs can penetrate some way into the sea at their full setting, but it's like shooting buck shot into the water, you won't get much more than ten or twenty metres before the pressure drops too far below the threshold we'd need."

"Thanks for making my life so much more interesting," said the ship's captain.

"Sorry," said Tiffany.

"If Callisto can listen out for anything that sounds like a submarine or a torpedo," said Wanda, "my powers allow me to reinforce the hull, problem is we only have one Callisto and one me, we need something else listening out that everyone can watch, coffee only works for so long before you start hallucinating."

"There may be another reason that P3 was here for such a long time, they may have been trying to provoke a response," said Tiffany.

"Psi ops?" asked Wanda.

"Playground Ops," said Tiffany. She looked at the diclonii sitting on top of the containers, some looked more ashen than usual, others looked pissed off. "Another twenty seconds and one of them might have tried to splash it. We should see if there's a way to improvise a torpedo alarm, but odds are they were trying to provoke us into revealing ourselves, if they knew we were here, we'd be under attack about now."

[Change Of Scenery]

The phone, which was plugged into the aircraft's comm system, started ringing.

Daria answered it, noting the name 'Brittany' was on the caller ID. "Boss?"

"There's been a prison break, it's Leavenworth, we've been re tasked with the recapture of all escapees?"

"How many?" asked Daria.

"All of them," said Brittany.

"All? How'd that happen?" asked Daria.

"Tunnels. Seismic sensors failed to detect them, but they were big, long, lined with chicken wire reinforced concrete, it emerged at a number of underground car parks, guards were distracted by an apparent attack on the outside that used a pinch, so cameras including those covering the blocks were down while all the guards relocated to defend from an external threat," said Brittany.

"This is a distraction," said Daria.

"This is a priority, and we're a deputy organisation to the US Marshals, so we absolutely have to do this," said Brittany.

"If we want to find out where Harman is, we have to find those diclonii and their precog," said Daria.

"The mercenaries are not the biggest concern here, some of these escapees are sick like you wouldn't believe," said Brittany.

"I doubt that, I've seen some strange minds," said Daria. She then said "Boss, by the time Charles and I arrive in Kansas, the escape will be how old?"

"Five hours," said Brittany.

"Would five hundred and thirty five kilometres seem like a reasonable search radius at that point?" asked Daria.

"Daria, that's the approximate distance between Leavenworth and Garden City," said Brittany.

"Boss, how were those diclonii planning on allowing the prisoners to evade the law for so long?" asked Daria.

Brittany eventually asked "What's your point?"

"If I find those diclonii, there's a chance I could get inside their heads and find out directly how they helped them out, what identification they might have fixed them up with, finding them could speed up the recovery of the escaped prisoners," said Daria.

Eventually, Brittany said "Okay, continue to Garden City, find those diclonii."

"Thanks boss," said Daria as she pressed 'end call'.

[Change Of Scenery]

"YOU DID WHAT? BRITTANY, THAT WAS JUST AN EXCUSE FOR DARIA TO DO HER OWN THING!" said Jane.

"But, Daria was right," said Brittany, "those diclonii would know where all the prisoners have gone."

"YEAH BUT! … Okay, yeah, anyway, as soon as I get these four back to prison," said Jane as she drove her car load of four violent felons. They were tied together with zip ties and piled on top of each other on the back seats. Jane was also looking through their possessions as she drove.

She looked through a passport and said " … Actually, hang on, passport issue dates, these can't be back dated, can they?"

"That's Jodie's department," said Brittany.

"Okay, thanks," said Jane as she ended the call and called Jodie.

Daria was right, those diclonii would have all the information they were looking for with these prisoners, but they also needed to recapture as many as possible as quickly as possible or they could kill, mutilate or rape someone, a lot of these guys were in prison for a good reason.

[Change Of Scenery]

"Tiffany, I think there's a problem," said Nana.

"What's that?" asked Tiffany.

"When that aircraft was here, I felt the presence of a diclonius in extreme pain. It was on the aircraft. I've been discussing it with the others, they felt it too."

"Right, I think you're right Nana, that is a problem," said Tiffany, she looked at the map.

"What can we do about it?" asked Nana.

"What we were going to do about it," said Tiffany, "they probably know we know. … we're about three days from Hawaii, our survival will depend on how soon after the attack they started sending ships our way, they're capable of forty seven knots," said Tiffany.

"I thought it was thirty knots," said the captain.

"You didn't hear this from me, but it's forty seven," said Tiffany. "We get close enough to Hawaii, they won't want to torpedo us, it'll be just too obvious to the US Navy what's going on, and they won't have to look very far to find the wreck, so the JSDF won't be able to lie their way out of it. Problem is the US set an awful lot of precedents when it came to chasing terrorists, Japan could throw that in the SecState's face, tie up the politicians for months. Fact is, I don't think Japan has any reason to fear retaliation as long as this is all they do, all that'll happen is our government will be dicks to them over passport visas and trade agreements for half a decade if that and they'll call it settled."

"So it depends on how bad they want us back?" asked Nana. "They're prepared to torture Diclonii to get what they want."

"They don't see Diclonii as people worthy of equal courtesy and respect to that of normals," said Tiffany, "they probably did more than torture, your proximity sense capability is probably of interest, especially if they want to hunt for fresh specimens, that Diclonius was probably on that Orion since before I even first encountered a Diclonius. They probably wired his or her brain to a computer to give them direction and signal strength if not range."

Nana was unsteady on her feet from hearing this, she leaned against a console.

"Sorry, but my line of work shows me what normals do to other normals over the most insignificant of differences, so Metas … … " said Tiffany.

After a long silence, the ship's captain asked "Sorry to butt in, but, submarines and torpedoes?"

"Yeah. … We so need a decent anti submarine weapon. Our PFTs are good against any surface or air threat most countries can throw at us, we just need to figure out how to make a depth char- … ge … …" Tiffany turned to Wanda and asked "where did we put the PFT manuals? I want to figure out exactly how much energy is in these things."

[Change Of Scenery]

"Daria, I've been meaning to ask you, but I kept forgetting," said Charles.

"What?" asked Daria.

"Well … … You and Jane, I can't remember the last time you two seemed to get along."

Daria mulled over this.

"I suppose it's just one of those things that build over time," said Daria, "I don't hate Jane, but lately I've found her to be increasingly annoying."

"You're not going to stop being friends are you?"

"No … … Why the sudden interest? You're not reverting to your high school self are you? I thought you were done with that."

"NO, GOD NO Daria, it's just, you Jane and Quinn are our founding members, kinda makes you our mascots. Seeing you and Jane fighting all the time, it's kind of worrying."

" … … Right," said Daria, "Charles, I don't know what to tell you on that, I mean, it's not like disagreements get planned, by their definition, they are unplanned. What's your specific fear here?"

"Well, if you two are no longer friends, it feels like a bad omen," said Charles.

"Oh-for-crying-out-loud, Charles, we're not into that are we? Omens? Portents?"

"The thing is that without your influence, Jane tries to appear to be okay by trying to maintain discipline, or whatever she latches onto at the time, and she does it with fists of ham, gets on everyone's case, makes everyone want to kill her."

"I really have no idea what to do about that," said Daria.

"And you get incredibly impulsive and start acting out," said Charles.

"Impulsive? Just because I'm showing more initiative lately-"

"No, not initiative, poor impulse control," said Charles, "I'm sorry, but there had to be a better way we could have gone about freeing those diclonii."

"Okay, do you know of such a way?" asked Daria.

"Well … Okay, what about the mission to Columbia? We spent all of five minutes planning it and rushed straight on down, and look where that got us?"

"You try preparing for a precog," said Daria.

"Look, regarding the diclonii, couldn't we have referred this to the CIA or SHIELD?" asked Charles.

"CIA: Sure, if I wanted nothing to be done about it," Daria said, "in fact they'd probably make contact and add the place to their list of black sites, CIA are shady, corrupt, I mean, if we ever end up like them, I'm out."

"If we end up like them. You mean, going around the world abducting people and causing massive property damage in operations that quote 'didn't happen' unquote?"

"Okay, good point, but seriously, do you honestly think the CIA would have acted on this to free the Diclonii from that site?"

" … … … No. But SHIELD might have," said Charles.

"Eventually, but that would have been an offensive action which would have meant referring the decision to act upwards and being decided at the speed of government. Now picture some of those Diclonii being your friends or relatives," said Daria.

"Yeah, I get it Daria. … I just think you and Jane need an outlet, I think that's why you're unable to get on with each other, you two need- … "

"What?" asked Daria.

"Pretend I'm someone else as I say this, right?"

"Okay," said Daria.

"You two need to get yourselves laid, you need intimate partners, some kind of outlet, I don't care about the details, but both of you need to get some, stat."

"Okay, problem with that is that boyfriends mean self esteem issues, paranoia, and all kinds of other stress that to me is about as attractive as a regurgitated meal."

Her lack of people skills would just screw everything up, People might find her attractive, or so the news magazines Stacy shoves in her face would have it, but there was just no way any relationship she would attempt would last more than a few copulations and then word would get out that she had all the warmth of Bose Einstein condensate, and the next news magazine Stacy shoves in her face would influentially say 'Don't go there,' so no way was she putting herself through that.

Realistically, she'd need to go for a relationship with another meta, the problem was the numbers she could casually interact with, it was not like she could just go on a pub crawl for single metahuman men out on the pull, the only realistic sources of candidates were the Legion, who she'd have to live with after she screwed things up, the Xavier Institute … … Yeah, right, SHIELD, who would think it's a rouse to complete an operation because she would be too stressed to approach them calmly, and the USAES, who she had no idea how to approach for dates without people raising questions about her sanity.

Not that her sanity was above question as it was, but she knew what she was doing on operations, knew what she was after and how to get it, however crazy her tactics appeared, but it was apparently blatantly obvious to Charles that Jane and Tom were over (but didn't want to admit it for whatever reason) whereas Daria had no clue how to read whatever Charles was reading.

No fun, no comfort, no relaxation, there was absolutely nothing about seeking a romantic partner that in the least attracted Daria. If that was supposed to improve her mood, it seemed like the worst way conceivable to go about doing it. Receiving affection may be pleasurable, but chasing it? No way.

...

Having thought that, that night with that Fulton cadet was so much better than the session she spent in automated restraints getting vibed or electrically stimulated to orgasm, something about nailing a real man instead of a machine ... '**Thanks Charles,**' she thought to herself.

[Change Of Scenery]

Inspector Xavier Paris kept scanning the windows of the elementary school the five fugitive marines were holed up in.

They had hit a gun shop, and two of his officers happened across them, the marines had opened fire and the cops had managed to reverse around the corner of a brick building before their windscreen wore out.

Eventually they had been traced to a primary school and taken five classes hostage.

The biggest problem playing on the inspector's mind was that these marines were in Leavenworth for war crimes, so they were totally not above killing little children to prove a point.

SWAT were inbound, another problem they had was that the architecture didn't allow them to just sneak in, the marines had command of the CCTV system, and-

The doors opened and the hostages emerged.

The inspector watched as they ran out, the kids were excited, the teachers and parents looked about ready to collapse into a heap.

Eventually a face that didn't belong emerged, the face attached to a buxom female body and blonde hair done up in two pony tails. She had this vacant look that, had Xavier not seen lots of legion activity in the news, would have completely hidden from him the fact that she was an intuitive war fighter. She also held a PFT M2.

"What are you doing here?" asked Xavier as he approached her.

"Tracking fugitives," said Brittany.

"Okay, speaking of, where are they?"

"They stayed behind. I gave them detention." Brittany was glad for that seminar Nemec had given them all those years ago about heroic one liners. Daria had seemed to think the instructors were out of real ideas at that point.

"Thanks for saving us, but you could show a bit more sensitivity around the children," said one of the frazzled teachers, "they've been so traumatised by all this."

"That was awesome!" said one of the kids, seeming, like his class mates, kind of un-traumatised, "Where can we get a gun like that?"

"You need a special permit to procure these," said Brittany, "and getting that permit requires that you work in an appropriate field of security or law enforcement, that means passing lots and lots of exams and proving yourself trustworthy."

"You mean school work and stuff?" whined the kid.

"Mmmm-hmmm," was Brittany's sombre reply.

"Aww man," groaned the kid, similar statements of discontent arose from the others.

[Change Of Scenery]

The two fugitive Air Force captains knew someone was following them, but they had to ascertain who and why.

They set an ambush between two dumpsters and waited.

Once the woman passed in front of them, they emerged and made to grab her arms and shoulders, idea was that they force her onto her knees and her face onto the ground in a split second, one of them would use his knee to pin her head to the ground.

What didn't go to plan was that she spun around, elbowing one across the jaw, striking the other's neck with a palm strike.

As they staggered back, she pressed on her attack on the one she had struck in the neck, punching him in the larynx twice before bringing the back of the wrist end of her radius down on the back of his head while he was doubled over, knocking him out.

The other pulled a knife, a large straight kitchen knife, and approached her.

Noticing the knife, the woman said "you're gonna regret that the rest of your life. Both seconds of it."

He made an attempt to stab her, she dodged it, he made another attempt, she made a feint and when he tried to stab her arm, she grabbed his, twisting it around, and jamming the knife through his shoulder.

"AAAAOOOOOOWWWWWWW!" he said.

"If I have to knock you out to prevent your escape, I will and can do so easily, but odds are you'll dislodge that knife and exsanguinate way faster than you're set to now."

"Errr, Exsanguinate? That's ... "

"That means, like, bleeding to death, Jesus, watch a crime show once in a while."

After an exasperated sigh, she seemed to spawn two full size duplicates, one checked on the unconscious one, the other examined the stab injury, the original pulled her phone and dialled 911 for cops and medics.

[Change Of Scenery]

The four naval officers that had been done for drug smuggling were interrupted from their negotiations by a pounding on the door of the warehouse.

Everyone in the building drew weapons and focused their attention on the door as it was eventually pounded off its hinges.

The cause of the door's destruction entered.

The cause of the door's destruction was a 20-ish black woman with shoulder length dreadlocks and a PFT M2 held up as she entered. She then turned to face the drug dealers and said "Go ahead. Fight the power. You gotta fight the power."

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria answered the phone call. "Amiga," greeted Daria, her voice somewhat dripping with sarcasm.

"We've retrieved about 80 percent of the absent prisoners now."

"Harman's mercs?" asked Daria.

"No joy so far, we'll need you to join the hunt for them," said Jane.

"That means finding their associates," said Daria.

"What are you really up to?" asked Jane.

"Excuse me?" asked Daria.

"You heard, you are up to something again."

Eventually Daria said "That precog and those two diclonii are controlling the mercenaries, you want to find those mercenaries, which, by the way, is my objective too, you need to find the precog and the diclonii that keep breaking them out of prison. What do you think I'm doing that conflicts with your objectives?"

"I don't know yet, but I do know you, and your attitude towards anyone with any form of authority."

"Right, this is what this is about is it? You feel I don't pay sufficient respect to your authowitae," said Daria, replicating Eric Cartman's inflection on 'Authority' to enhance her feeling about Jane's motivation.

"And you're a rebel with or without a cause, and when you have no cause, you make one up," said Jane, "you're unpredictable and don't care what the Legion's for, you'll just do what you like for the thrill of causing trouble."

"I don't care what the Legion's for? I'd say you've forgotten what it's for," said Daria, "It's about changing the world."

"Yes, into a BETTER, SAFER place, not into a global bar brawl, what about that argument between the Japanese and US Secstates? You call that an improvement?"

"No, I call the liberation of a concentration camp an improvement, you just call it pointless rebellion that stains the honour of the naaaaationallll leeeeeegiiionnnnnn," said Daria, now replicating their former principal's reverent intonation for her beloved institution.

After about a minute of silence, Jane said "we'll continue this later."

"Well, it's a hobby I guess," said Daria before she hung up.

As soon as the call had ended, Charles said "Okay, that wasn't mere annoyance, that was starting to get hateful."

"Well ... ... yeah, it was ... I-"

A threat alarm interrupted Daria and Charles initiated evasive manoeuvres saying "atoll-atoll," after a look at the map and the RWR, he said "Origin's Garden City, what the hell?"

Daria selected the SAC channel and said "NORAD from November One Three Five Kilo, atoll, atoll, origin is Garden City, Kansas, three eight mark zero north, one zero zero mark four five west, we're squawking zero zero two one, over."

"November One Three Five Kilo from NORAD, have that, we're scrambling assistance, will advise progress, over."

"NORAD from November One Three Five Kilo, have that, over."

Charles conducted a number of vertical S turns perpendicular to their previous vector.

"Second SAM launch, same origin," said Charles.

Daria got a look at the exhaust trail as they descended, "that's a big one, you need a missile the length of a truck to get to that altitude."

Eventually, they were on the deck, they flew metres over fences and crops, and flew under 11kV lines close enough for arcing to occur between the tail fin lightning conductors and the phase lines.

The rear view displays showed them where the missiles went, the first one having a steeper angle created a big enough dirt and smoke cloud to indicate something about two thirds the mass of a mk81.

The second, which had been launched at a shallower angle went off somewhere in the distance.

Another missile was launched.

This didn't make sense, the L1's radar cross section should have been dwarfed by the power lines and fences and sprinkler syste-

"Transponder off," said Daria as she turned off their transponder.

The third missile impacted the ground less than 500m behind them.

"November One Three Five Kilo from NORAD, there's a live fire exercise in progress, squawk zero zero zero zero, we're talking to the Officer In Charge now."

"NORAD from November One Three Five Kilo, have that, we're going to make contact ourselves, over," said Daria. She didn't bother with the transponder.

They entered into the Garden City 'burbs, they overflew four MIM 104 batteries, the radar system appeared on their scope and Charles carried out braking manoeuvres until he was in a hover over the car park in which the truck was parked, it's radar antenna on a cherry picker arm, a number of airmen with assault rifles stood around gawking at the Legionnaires.

Daria unbuckled her seat belt as she opened the canopy, jumping out before the aircraft was below car height.

She removed her helmet as she walked to the truck, the door opened when she was five metres from it.

One of the occupants, a lieutenant colonel, was on the phone with someone as he leaned out. He said something into the phone and hung up, he then emerged.

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU DOING HERE?" asked Daria as she grabbed him and pulled him down the steps of the entrance to the radar truck, "YOU TRYING TO KILL US?"

"I'm sorry," he said, clearly he was ashen, about to throw up.

"ARE YOU NOW? LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN BE EVEN SORRIER!"

"DARIA!" called Charles as he grabbed her shoulders, "HE DIDN'T MEAN IT, IT WAS AN ACCIDENT," he then turned to the lieutenant colonel and said "it was an accident, wasn't it?"

"Yes, you see, we were supposed to shoot down a drone with that exact same code, we're safing all systems now, you can continue on your journey."

"Our transponder code?" asked Daria as she calmed down.

Eventually she let him go. "How the hell did you end up ... ... that precog again, we must be getting close. Garden City was our destination anyway."

"Come on Daria, we need to get over to the police station so we can get on with our investigation."

Daria eventually turned and followed Charles to the aircraft.

[Change Of Scenery]

Nana climbed the ladder to the ship's radar mast, where Lucy was sat on the antenna.

"How do you keep from throwing up?" asked Nana as she watched Lucy spin.

"By watching the horizon," said Lucy.

"How does that work?" asked Nana.

"No idea, someone suggested it one day, I tried it out, it worked."

"I see," said Nana.

Eventually Lucy said "You wish to discuss something?"

" ... ... Yes."

Nana eventually asked "how do you feel now that facility is down?"

"Sated ... ... somewhat sated."

Nana eventually asked "Except for, ... ?"

"I'm not a hero, I did something heroic and noble, but I didn't bother trying to get Callisto to launch an operation, we just made it a side order to Tiffany chasing those diclonii that killed her unit."

"I see. ... Could you have been victorious without Tiffany helping us?" asked Nana.

" ... No."

"Then you did nothing wrong in staying away," said Nana.

"That's true, ignoring that I lived off the proceeds of crime all that time."

"We're always in violation of someone's law just by being," said Nana.

"I suppose," said Lucy.

"Does it help to be alone all the time?" asked Nana.

"Does it help to be with other people?" asked Lucy.

"You joined Callisto's group," said Nana.

"It was mutually advantageous," said Lucy, "We grew to like each other, but that might have changed, the magnatude of the wrongs I have done may not yet have fully sunk in."

"If they haven't rejected you by now, I don't see them doing it ever."

"Doesn't mean they forgive me," said Lucy, "Kouta can't. He doesn't ever want to see me dead or anything like that, but he can't forgive me. Could end up with the same thing going on with Callisto."

"That's sad," said Nana.

"Sure is," said Lucy.

"You're cofortable in the sadness," said Nana.

"It's what I got," said Lucy. "You ever seen that anti-speeding advert with the man who kept seeing an apparition of the kid he ran down as he goes through his day?"

"Kill your speed or live with it?" asked Nana.

"Yeah. Don't take a life if you have a conscience," said Lucy, "I suppressed mine with hatred. Now the hatred's pretty much faded, I feel sick most the time. Now I'm over that line, further kills don't make much of a difference, gets easier every time, and yet I can still feel some loss when I kill. I don't know how to describe it."

"I overheard Kouta discussing some of his homework, it included a statistics module, an example that was discussed was radioactive half life, every so often the radiation decreases by half."

"Okay, I suppose that works," said Lucy. Suddenly both Lucy and Nana felt something strange going on.

"What ... ?" asked Nana.

"Yeah, I feel it- WOOOAAAHHH-" Lucy fell off, unable to use her vectors to stabilise herself.

"Are you okay?" asked Nana.

Lucy got up from where she fell on the crow's nest around the Radar mast. "I'll live. ... But we're in trouble."

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany kept trying to push her hand through the console. ... "Crap."

"Now what?" asked Wanda.

Tiffany grabbed the intercom and said "All hands, general quarters, general quarters, for those of you who have no navy experience, that means prepare for enemy attack, I want the lowest decks evacuated and all doors and bulkheads closed."

"What does that mean?" asked the captain.

"It means we can't defend against air assets beyond normal visual range and that our anti-submarine defence has dropped from crap to non-existent," said Lucy as she and Nana entered the bridge.

"Surface ship inbound, thirty miles, heading one one three, speed four seven knots," said the radar operator.

"Is that where they got the metajammer?" asked Callisto.

"No, I lost sense of the other diclonii starting from below, I think the metajammer's behind and below us."

"It would have to be close," said Tiffany, "they don't want to be too close or they'll sink themselves with their own torpedo. The fact they haven't done that yet and the fact that ship's closing tells me they intend to capture you all alive. That gives us time."

"Time for what?" asked Nana.

"How's that torpedo coming?" asked Tiffany.

"Arakawa's got the guidance built, also has an appropriate fuse and launch system, problem is we don't know what sound frequency to make it listen for," said Wanda, "she said something about keeping it simple, which she didn't really do herself, anyway, she said something about using a band pass filter."

"That means something that'll only allow a select range of frequencies pass," said Tiffany, "we need to isolate something the sub's putting out so we can get this thing to home in on them."

"Yeah, Arakawa's rigging microphone to go on the end of a length of wire, and she'll compare the signal strength she gets through the filter until she finds something that's stronger from the submarine than from us," said Wanda, "About the only part I did understand."

"Okay, that leaves the frigate, if we get too close to US territory, or if the sub runs too low on power to maintain the metajammer, they'll probably attack. We can't shoot first, but I want to deal with the surface ship, but not in such a way that they can claim we initiated the battle. They have to fire the first war shot before we can fire the torpedo, or the Japanese can call on the US DOD to arrest or delete us."

"The very specific language you're using suggest a plan," commented Wanda.

"Yep."

After a pause, Wanda said "an insane plan, judging by your silence."

"Yep. ... I'll need one of the rebreathers, the thermic lance, about 300 metres of rope, one of the abseiling harnesses, and something I can use as a sort of underwater hang glider," said Tiffany.

[Change Of Scenery]

Daria entered the cafeteria overlooking the bank. She had seen twelve other locations about ten other crime scenes.

It was a fairly safe assumption that the diclonii would have been disguising their hair, eyes and horns to anonymise themselves, so the E-fits Daria had made focused entirely on their faces in a number of skin tones, leaving the eye colour blank to save on the number of pictures she would be carrying around.

If this was where the precog had first met the diclonii, then they should have spent time talking and working together where the precog proves him or herself to them. There were five instances where this blonde woman was seen talking to two individuals matching the E-fits, the horns weren't always properly disguised, two or three witnesses noticed them poking against the sides of the hat or head dress they saw the girls wearing.

She heard two motorcycles roar past.

She glanced at them. Third time. She got one of their number plates and wrote them down, if she sees them again, she'll know something's up. She should have what she needed to start looking for an identity now, she had a good E-fit of the woman, and a lot of people were saying they'd seen her around a bunch of times. She'd also have to run her by the police here see if they have her as a perpetrator of or witness to any crimes.

[Change Of Scenery]

The ship pulled up alongside the container vessel.

"ATTENTION CONTAINER VESSEL, HEAVE TO IMMEDIATELLY! YOU HAVE TEN MINUTES TO COMPLY!"

They had used a public address system to broadcast this, so the container vessel couldn't simply claim to have radio problems.

At this range, the ship could simply use its CIWS and missiles to cut a deep gash in the side. Of course, that wouldn't exactly be a one hit kill, plenty of time for the US Navy to walk in on them; they'll prefer to use the torpedo to break the ship in half.

Wanda glanced down and saw Tiffany between a couple of containers, she was rigged up and now they were lighting her thermic lance. Apparently those things burn under water.

She then ran off, no longer in view from the bridge, Wanda assumed she had run off the side of the ship as planned.

"Here we go," said Wanda.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany took a few minutes to get used to the way the wing worked, but once she did, she started her approach to the ship.

The plan was insane, Tiffany was going to have to go right up in front of the propellers, the slightest lapse in judgement and she would be pre-sliced shark food.

She decided to go for the furthest one first. The nearest one would be better, if the bow of the ship could end up in the blast of the container ship's propellers, that could cause the ship to capsize, probably get them well out of the range of their CIWS, but that was impossible without putting the parawing through the port or centre propeller.

She would have to settle for just getting the ship unable to keep up.

She pushed the lance into the propeller shaft cowling, squeezing the handle that would release the full flow of the ozone.

She cut a circle in the shroud big enough to admit the lance.

That done, she plunged it in, and eventually there was a loud bang and the propeller came out, it ended up resting against the rudder.

Tiffany let go of the lance and worked on retracting herself up the rope so she could approach the centre propeller.

She cut the hole in the second shroud.

She plunged the lance into the shaft and eventually a second bang sounded.

As the ship fell back, they tried to turn starboard, the rudders had trouble turning with the propellers resting against them.

Tiffany decided to start cutting into the hull as the ship dropped back.

The bow thrusters were employed to try to restore directional control.

Eventually she was at the bow and she pulled herself away from the ship so she wouldn't surface.

[Change Of Scenery]

Cheers erupted from the upper decks.

Arakawa couldn't join in those cheers, she had to listen out for a torpedo launch.

The idea was that if the Japanese fire first, they lose all rights to complain when she shoots back.

One nagging concern she had was that the torpedo would end up chasing the enemy torpedo instead of the submarine. She had isolated a submarine specific frequency, but it could be that the torpedo will also generate the same frequency.

She eventually heard a hiss and then a sudden screaming noise. Torpedoes weren't built for acoustic stealth, so they were loud. Arakawa hit the switch.

She heard a second noise erupt. Their own torpedo would probably arrive at the enemy submarine before the enemy torpedo hit them because their own torpedo had a tail current whereas the enemy torpedo had a head current.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany pulled herself up the side of the container ship.

It was a bit of an asshole trying to get the rope back into the bag, so she was simply coiling it around her arm. If it snagged the container ship's propeller, she would probably be unable to free herself in time to avoid getting extremely thinly sliced.

She saw the water heave behind the container ship.

Then spray erupted.

Tiffany smiled as she continued her ascent up the container ship.

[Change Of Scenery.]

"I can sense them again," said Lucy.

"So can I," said Nana.

"Hearing's returned. ... Man, that Japanese captain sure knows how to swear," chuckled Callisto.

"Hope that's it," said Wanda, "doubt we'll have it so easy again."

[Change Of Scenery]

That was the last witness interviewed, and now she headed back to the police station.

All Daria had was an appearance, and a name, Miss Teak Meg. Daria had a hard time believing that was her true name.

Then again, she remembered that scene from 'Hot Fuzz'. "Sergeant Angel," "Morning, a swan's escaped." "A Swan's escaped? Right, and where has it escaped from exactly?" "Err the castle." "Oh yeah? And who might you be?" "Mr Staker, Mr Peter Ian Staker." "Mr P. I. Staker, yeah, PISS TAKER, COME ON!", that scene immediately followed by Sgt. Angel talking to Peter Staker about his missing swan, all "Yes Mr Staker, we'll do everything we can, can you describe the swan please?"

That could be her true name. Even if it is an alias, there might be an address behind it with physical evidence for AFIS, CODIS, DMV, DWP, any number of things that could be put through a PNC check that might give them something useful.

Those bikes showed up again.

Same index on one as before.

What the hell could they want?

One popped a wheelie, went one way.

The other shouted for her attention and then started burning doughnuts.

That was what they were up to? They were following her around to put on a stunt show?

The purpose was lost on Daria as she received a PFT discharge to her back.

She didn't fall to the ground, the man that had shot her with the PFT M1 caught her and one of the bikers came up beside them.

She was loaded onto the back of the bike, her hands tied around the driver's waist, her feet to the passenger footrests, and a helmet was fitted to her head. One additional strap was tied under Daria's shoulders and crossed before being passed around the driver's shoulders and back around Daria. The man then nodded to the driver and stepped back, the bikers then zoomed off.

[Change Of Scenery]

Harman got off the phone and turned to Val and Sal. "Everything's ready in Chicago."

"Good," said Val.

"They on their way to the staging area?" asked Sal.

"Be there in three hours," said Harman, "letter's in the post, the police will receive a tip-off from an informant that'll tell them of suspicious activity. This is going to be so funny."

The guy who was sat at his computer started printing out some spreadsheets, saying "Boss, got our charges designed, went with the ten charge configuration for simplicity."

"Okay then, just need our secret ingredient," said Harman.

[Change Of Scenery]

Tiffany and Wanda sat in the Hawaiian SHIELD field office cafeteria. As they waited for their superiors to get back to them.

"You seem happier," said Wanda.

"Yeah. Whether or not we got the data we were after, we did a good thing. It's also a good thing that two thirds of the refugees had relatives to come and collect them, and they offered to help the remainder, immigration had very little to have to do," said Tiffany.

"There's something else too," said Wanda.

"I think I figured myself out too. I'm nothing like that cold. My mission had nothing to do with rescuing concentration camp victims, it was to retrieve that information, and facing off against the JSDF endangered that objective. I feared for those diclonii. I was scared that they would end up back in that dungeon."

"Think that'll help you with that shrink?" asked Wanda.

"No idea. Let's just get through this operation first," said Tiffany.

The supervisory agent that had taken the hard drive off of them entered the cafeteria and sat down next to them.

"Any good?" asked Tiffany.

"No. They're not on there," said the supervisory agent.

"That was the only lead we had," said Tiffany. "Now what?"

"Now ... We start again," said Wanda.

Tiffany said "okay. ... Where?"

"Let's start with their previous clients," said Wanda, "maybe they revealed something useful."

"There's something else you need to know," said the supervisory agent, "Tiffany, you're no longer aligned with the Legion are you?"

"They're not my favourite people," said Tiffany, "why?"

[Change Of Scenery]

End.


	6. Please Give Me Your Full Attention

Constraints: Follows 'Pre-emptive Counter Attack.'

Synopsis: The Legion are needed elsewhere while Harman steals something.

Please Give Me Your Full Attention.

Content: Few corpses.

Legal:

[]

Inspector Ralph Jarrod entered his office and started sorting through the letters from his pigeon hole.

The one at the top looked a little odd.

He opened it and read the following:

'To whom it may concern:

A number of armed men congregated at 32 Indigo Ct, Chicago, Illinois.

Because they could be government, I opted to write a letter to give myself time to leave so that I don't get eliminated, but I was concerned that they may not be government.

Yours sincerely: I wasn't here.'

"Oh that's nice, now we can nip it in the shod leaf," said the inspector as he picked up the phone and called one of the gang unit Detective Inspectors.

[]

"Yeah?" asked Charles as he answered the phone.

"We're all converging on Chicago," said Brittany, "Where's Daria? I can't raise her."

"Neither can I," said Charles, "I've been spending the last day trying to find her, she was supposed to be chasing up witnesses."

"I hope she's okay," said Brittany, "oh, but this just can't wait, a terrorist gang has been uncovered planning to blow up public spaces in the Chicago area, and the police may need us to help find the bombs or ... ... ."

"Right ... ... I'm on my way," said Charles. He took a final look around and finally turned into an owl to fly back to the police station where the L1 was parked.

[]

Jane, Tom and Stacy stepped out of the Gridrunner and approached the police cordon around the house.

"I smell them, Harman and his mercenaries," said Stacy, she then asked "who's running the crime scene?"

A female CSI in full suit said "That would be me," she was carrying a bag with a steel trash can inside it, there was the burnt remains of some maps, "we've spent the last hour or so looking for useable footprints, we've only found three."

"But I'm smelling at least fifty scents," said Stacy.

"And they're planning on blowing up public spaces?" asked Jane. Something seemed wrong. "Who'd hire them for that? Where are these bombs meant to be?"

"One's meant to be in the park across Lake Street, there's five meant to be within Congress Circle, twelve at Lake Park High School," she continued to name locations, which Tom and Stacy memorised.

"Okay, Tom and Stacy, check those out," said Jane.

They shot off using their own self levitation capabilities.

"EOD must be stretched pretty thin, as are most SWAT and uniform in general," said Jane, "what's really happening?"

The cops startled when they heard a bang.

Jane looked up and eventually said "Just Charles."

Over the radio they suddenly heard "Sierra Oscar from Sierra Oscar Zero One Three, our car just blew up, literally, something in the engine exploded and blew a hole through the bonnet, over."

"Sierra Oscar Zero One Three from Sierra Oscar, have that."

"Blown up?" asked Jane. "Excuse me," she said as she flew off.

[]

Quinn landed next to Jane and asked. "So, what do we have here?"

"Engine blew up," said Jane, "take a look at the hood."

Quinn looked at the hood, there was a couple of tiny holes surrounding a big hole.

She then looked at the engine, a V8 twin turbo diesel.

"What did you fill this thing with?" she asked of the cops standing nearby.

"Diesel ... I think ... " said one.

Quinn explained "The damage originated from within the fuel injector, that tells me the fuel has a significant amount of a high explosive in it, and given how much pressure a diesel fuel injector generates, it wouldn't need to be particularly sensitive to detonate from this. Where did you last take on fuel?"

"A gas station on the corner of Route 43 and W Montrose Avenue," said one of the cops.

"Right, Jane, get this car to the middle of nowhere, the remaining fuel in the engine's fuel bus could cook off at any time and set off the tank, officers, hold on to me, I'll fly us to the gas station," said Quinn as she checked the map on his cell phone.

After Jane flew off with the car, the two cops grabbed Quinn's shoulders and Quinn levitated, the two cops hanging of her shoulders. She located the gas station and flew them over there.

As soon as she landed, she said "One of you give me your radio and then I want this place shut down and evacuated, we need at least half a mile exclusion around here,"

One reached for his radio as the other started to the shop, but they both stopped and asked "Half a mile?"

"Remind me: What's the typical capacity of a gas station's diesel tank?" Asked Quinn.

They jumped to it, and Quinn broadcast "All call signs from Quinn, I'm with the Legion, all fuel vendors in the Chicago area need to be closed down immediately and a half mile exclusion zone set up, I have found that the fuel of at least one was sabotaged with an explosive additive, and could have been rigged to detonate, I also need EOD to assist at the gas station on Route 4 3 and W Montrose Avenue, further, any vehicle stopped because the engine exploded is likely an explosion hazard following replenishment at one of the affected vendors, if evacuation looks impractical, sever at least ten centimetres of the fuel line to disrupt detonation, over."

She then used her cell phone to call Betty, she had a feeling that this was mainly going to be all about explosive ordnance disposal.

[]

"Well what's wrong with them?" asked Betty as the men with the articulated truck tractor unit stood before him next to the magazine Betty uses for maintaining the Legion's explosive demolition training.

The nervous looking man eventually said "we don't have that information for you."

"Eh? Do you have it for yourselves? You're the ones being told to ship this stuff back to the factory, don't you know what risks you're taking? Truck full of dodgy explosives? That's about six tons of everything from black powder to composition C4, are they too sensitive, or insensitive, or ineffective?" it was about now his phone started ringing, he checked it as he asked "Are you sure you want to shift them instead of just doing a controlled detonation here? You should have this information, you would if you had a union. You need to form a union. Excuse me a second." He answered it asking "What's up?"

"I need you up here to help us look for bombs, can you meet me on the corner of Route 43 and W Montrose Avenue, Chicago? Harman's mercenaries have set up a fireworks display here and this could be the opening salvo."

Betty sighed and said "All right, be there in a second," he addressed the men and said "I want that information or I will not release this container to you, find out the reason for the recall or I'll do a controlled detonation here. I'll be back later."

[]

"Up a bit ... ... bit more ... ... bit mo-STOP!"

The car now blended perfectly with the view of what was behind.

"Okay," Harman said as he boarded the vehicle, "now we just got to wait."

He checked his watch. "Almost time for the Chicago show to begin. Pity we can't get all the Chicago radio stations to play 1812 Overture, that would have been classic."

That got a chuckle from the others.

[]

Betty showed up and looked around.

"QUINN?" he shouted.

He then saw Quinn levitate out of a manhole within the premises of a gas station, she carried a bucket which had something duct taped to it, probably filled with a cast HE and the device taped to it is the fuse.

She set herself down and knelt over the device.

He approached and asked "What's going on Quinn?"

"Wow," said Quinn. She looked faint.

"Nitro exposure?" whispered Betty.

"Yeah, the diesel tank, I've already briefed the others on the gas stations, we think the whole city has been rigged for-" a police van's sirens blared from nearby and Quinn tried to shove her palms into her ear holes.

"Right, get out of here, you remember what I taught you about recovering from bang-head?"

"Yeah, this bomb might have useful evidence," said Quinn, she then looked up alarmed and seemed to clench her buttocks.

"I'll handle it. Go."

Quinn nodded and flew off, doing her best to hold her bowels closed.

[]

Tom entered another diesel tank and removed another bomb. He remembered Quinn's briefing saying that the bombs he was looking for could be quite small, but Harman's people probably went belt and braces just to be sure.

That seemed to be the pattern. His shape vision allowed him to tell from a height which gas stations had bombs in their fuel tanks (that seemed to include the gasoline tanks as well).

He removed it and flew back to the first gas station where Betty was also moving bombs to.

"Hold it," said the sergeant in charge of the EOD team, "that's as many as we have disruptors for, any others, you need to drop in the lake."

"Okay," said Tom as he flew off again.

[]

"Daria and Tiffany have the right idea about reviewing the no killing policy," groaned Quinn as she sat folded on the toilet stall in the Oak Park station rest room, every time she thought she was completely empty, more came out.

Moreover, her head still throbbed and she was seeing stars, she stank of diesel, she must have knocked over five people on her way down to this underground station's toilets, "I just want to kill those bastards, painfully and slowly, screw setting a good example for the world."

She then heard some cracks and screams, indicating a number of explosions that scared a whole load of bystanders.

"That had better be all of it," she whined as she stood up, flushing the toilet with one hand as she pulled up her pants and trousers with the other.

After she was dressed, she grabbed a squirt of soap, rubbing it into her hands as she left, not bothering with water and drying as she went to investigate the probably life threatening situation.

She flew over the ticket gates, pissing off those under her as she flew towards where she had perceived the hypocentres to be.

After arriving over an excited crowd that were looking east along the line, she asked "What's going on?"

"A train was approaching and suddenly there were some flashes, I think it got blown up," said someone. He then said "where have you been swimming? You smell like the inside of a ... a ... "

"A diesel tank at a gas station. It's the latest skincare fad. Excuse me," said Quinn as she pulled a keychain flashlight and entered the tunnel.

She eventually came up on where the ceiling had been blown in. The holes where the charges must have been inserted were surprisingly well defined, and the reinforcements in the cast concrete beam had a thin smear of copper and striations pointed away from the holes, the hole must have contained a linear cutting charge. That would have been enough, the shockwave from the back of the charge cracked the concrete while the copper liner was blasted through the reinforcements, they must have looked like underground maintenance workers, type up a phoney work order.

Would they even have needed a phoney work order?

'Tom and Jane from Quinn, train immobilised east of Oak Park station, need one or both of you to clear its way and move it out, over.'

'Quinn from Tom, I'm inbound, over.'

'Quinn from Jane, I'm still dealing with gas station bombs, I'll continue with that, over.'

'Brittany, Quinn, I need you to get onto Chicago Transport police to get the Chicago Underground shut down, in fact, why hasn't this happened already?'

'More trains?' asked Brittany.

'I'm working at evacuating one that's been blocked in by a cave in,' said Quinn before something caught her attention.

There was a patch of concrete in another concrete beam over the train.

'Bastards have more bombs in place over the train, I need Tom or Jane to help move the beam and then the train itself, I'll see about getting everyone out of the train,' said Quinn 'maybe I can get some of them out of here.'

'Have that, over.'

The front and the back of the train had been covered in soil. Something else was strange, the doors had all been dented.

Just enough to stop them opening.

Quinn looked at the walls and saw craters blown into them. Probably deliberate, to trap them.

She then looked at the ceiling. She couldn't remove people along the side of the train in case the remaining charges go off, they were safer in the train, especially considering the threat of shrapnel direct from the charges.

She needed to place some kind of suppor-

She flew back towards the station and lowered her face to the rail lines. She then drew in a big breath, pursed her lips and blew, discharging a current from her tongue to the rail, cutting through the rail.

She then used the butt of her PFT M2 to knock the clips out of the anchor points.

She then lifted the length of rail off the sleepers.

"Ohhhhh crap, I really need to catch up on my weight training," she just about whimpered as she struggled to lift the piece of steel.

[]

Brittany hung up, having finally got some movement from the Chicago transport police, and dialled the white house again.

"White house, how may I direct your call?"

"I'm Brittany, Legion Leader, I need the president to be aware that the activity in Chicago is probably a diversion, he needs to make all departments aware that an attack on something important is probably imminent."

"Oh yeah, I put you on hold and you hung up."

"Because I had to make another call to someone else regarding a life threatening situation in Chicago, I'm also going to run out of call time, this is urgent, how are you going to look if an inquiry later finds that you repeatedly put me on hold while a high value target gets hit?"

"I'll put you through momentarily, please hold."

Brittany sighed as she listened to 'Things Can Only Get Better.'

"I've paid forty five bucks to listen to a track I wouldn't download for free."

[]

Tom entered the tunnel, seeing Quinn welding bits of track into A-frames and pushing them into the space between the ceiling and floor, she then used another piece of rail to brace the frame against the wall.

The lack of any kind of shielding gas meant the welds were going to be slightly crap, but they would be sufficient.

Tom elected instead to shove the material obstructing the train and he pulled it out.

Quinn considered whether or not to continue what she had been doing. Any more of these beams come down, it could cause subsidence, which would threaten to topple whatever was above the tunnel.

Tom had started to cut more beams when the charges went off, so he instead flew through, extracting Quinn before the beams dropped more than thirty centimetres.

"Thanks," said Quinn.

[]

Having landed the L1 at O'Hare airport, Charles was flying on his ring when he saw a rocket streak skywards. The motor burned out in half a second, and it was so far away he couldn't see it without the fire.

He morphed his eyes to see over the distance and reacquired it.

Charles decided to morph his arm into a PFT M2 set to 11, full auto.

He lined up the sights and fired off a burst. The warhead exploded with the energy of a mk. 83

'Brittany from Charles, I just splashed a rocket, it looked like it was homing on something, over.'

'Charles, Brittany, Have that, Jodie from Brittany, Need you and the Gridrunner in the air, look for any radio beacons that appear to be out of place, over.'

'Jodie's on task,' thought cast Jodie.

[]

Julia approached the origin of the rocket, and she too now wanted to kill Harman, because it had originated from Loyola Park beach, there were twelve casualties with 3rd degree burns.

Seven children and five adults, there were also surfboards with the remains of some sails there which Julia guessed were windsurfing boards.

Julia landed and got to work healing the injured.

[]

The train passed them.

"Start engine and advance," said Harman.

The man operating the 2.5T truck started the engine and advanced as ordered.

He drove onto the track, lining up to follow the train. He then hit a switch and motors whirred, bringing the rail wheels down. The truck lifted 10cm off the ground before a clock indicated the rail wheels were locked.

He then advanced.

Harman stood up through the hole in the roof, a PFT M2 in his hands, and he watched through the slot in the screen as the train appeared in view.

"Maintain this distance," said Harman. This PFT M2 had been refitted with a scope sight. M2s were generally not considered ranged weapons, if you were in a legitimate armed force, you'd instead get an M4, but the M2 was all they had available to them, so they had to improvise a scope and a stock so Harman could use it over the greater range. They had spent about half an hour zeroing the scope.

They had also fitted it with a high power IR laser, they had also zeroed that. This was intended to destroy their cameras.

The name of the game was surprise, they needed to avoid causing them to call for help until they were somewhere the hell else with their loot.

Harman fired the laser.

They would know it worked when someone came out the back to find out why the camera's down.

[]

'Charles from Jodie, I have found a suspect signal originating from a gas station, the intention was probably to have the rocket back up the bombs they had manually placed, I've used the Gridrunner masers on it, I'll do the same with any other signals I find, over.'

'Jodie, Charles, received, out.'

Charles had been onto the phone talking to the police about the possibility that other rockets had been installed, the one he had spotted was in a launcher disguised as an advertising gimmick. How many similar ways are there to disguise a rocket launcher? The rocket had been four metres long, that's apparently big enough to hit anywhere in the city. Finding out how many transmitters there were could help them determine how many rockets were in the city.

'Jodie, Charles, don't destroy the transmitters, I propose we relocate them into a place we don't mind having high explosive ordnance raining down, over.'

'Acknowledged, out.'

Charles knew, as did everyone else probably, that there could be many hundreds of transmitters, and probably only a few, possibly even just that one rocket, the Chicago job was just to keep the Legion occupied.

'Brittany, Charles, how's it going with the president, over?'

'Still on hold, over.'

'Brittany, Jodie, I'm calling Armalin, he should have a direct line to the president, over.'

[]

Harman and a growing number of his men were replacing the people on the train. None of them had encountered the metajammers that were currently an obstacle for Val and Sal, nor had they found the security centre, they were probably ahead of the flask, and the loot they were after was simply too dangerous to carry using anything other than Diclonii vectors.

Harman came up against the flask. The flask, being the width of the rail car, could not be passed without raising suspicion. He also didn't want to blind too many cameras or that would also be suspicious.

He could probably get away with blinding one more camera ... ... ...

[]

Tom and Quinn heard a couple more explosions, and they flew over to investigate.

A substation near a hospital was on fire.

The coolant was not exactly the cleanest fuel for a fire, and was belching out thick black smoke, the main thing driving the fire was he power coming in from the 11kV lines.

There was also smoke wafting out of the basement windows of the hospital, but this looked a lot less like an inferno than just the exhaust from an explosive charge.

They entered through the window.

"No generators, no substation," said Quinn. She then flew over to the consumer unit, saying "I'll maintain power, you see if you can use the parts from both transformers to replace the damaged parts of one of them," as she pulled a screwdriver so she could remove the chassis to access the phase bus bars.

"Won't work," said Tom, "all the injectors, the valves, I'll have to find new generators, excuse me," he said just before he flew off.

'Brittany, Quinn, we have a hospital with no generators and no substation, Tom's looking for new generators, I'm providing substitute power, over.'

'Quinn, Brittany, have that, I'm contacting the electricity board to get the substation isolated, Charles from Brittany, we need you to form a barrier over the fire as soon as the power is cut off, over.'

'Charles on task, over.'

[]

Jane and Jodie were focused on removing the transmitters to an inflatable raft out in the lake.

Mack was locating explosive charges on the underground rail network and safing any bombs he could find, cracking any concrete seal that held them in place with thermal shock, he accessed the charges easily, plucked out the detonators. He left the rest of the device intact in case there was unexpected evidence on them that could indicate the involvement of previously unknown members, but it was expected that it was just Harman's mercenaries, the diclonius, and possibly the precog.

Mack heard a roar and some screams and shouts real close.

He emerged and saw an exhaust column rising straight up from a nearby roundabout.

A smoke cloud at the base obscured any casualties, but he would have been unable to do anything for them anyway.

He set out to chase the rocket.

Once he ascended past the point at which the motor had burned out, he found that although the smoke from the remains of the propellant was thinner, it was still fairly visible until he caught up with it.

The fins, four curved stabilisers unfolding around the motor case and four control fins unfolded and rotated from where they were ahead of their shafts. He wasn't really bothered about where it was going, he just wanted it gone, so he hit it with enough heat to incinerate it. He maintained enough of a stand-off to avoid being hit with a lethal shockwave and incinerated it from the tail so there was nothing capable of being projected as shrapnel towards him.

The loss of the stabilisers meant that the drag from the control fins pulled the projectile around, Mack had to get around it, incinerating it from the front would mean burning through the fuse of which none of them had seen the structure.

The warhead eventually cooked off, the shock wave was sufficient to feel to Mack like he had fallen flat on his face from about four metres altitude. He eventually recovered and went back to safing bombs on the underground rail line.

[]

'Stacy, Brittany, how's it going finding those bombs? Over.'

'Brittany, Stacy, no joy, I'm also using their scents, but I'm not finding those anywhere either. Is there anything on those rockets what's going to be unique?'

'Stacy, Jodie, that's unlikely, given the most likely ingredients and components, however, I'll give you the locations where parts of the first rocket fell, you might find something unique, over.'

[]

"Sierra Oscar, Sierra Oscar two two nine, three IC1 males just broke the cordon on the corner of Kildare Avenue and Payne Street, driving a fluorescent green Ford Ka, index X-ray Papa four three Zulu India, heading east on Payne Street."

Betty, having heard the communication over one of the EOD cop's radios, teleported to Payne Street. He saw the car turn onto Kedvale Avenue, and teleported ahead of it, he saw the kid in the front passenger seat lighting something.

They turned onto Simpson Street headed east.

He teleported to the gas station on the corner of Simpson and Crawford, and watched as they arrived and headed for the diesel tank manhole cover. The one with the charge emerged from the car, a manhole removal handle in the other.

Just as the kid had gotten the manhole cover open, Betty teleported over and grabbed the charge, he then teleported away.

"HEY! THAT'S CHEATING!" said the indignant kid.

Betty pulled a pair of pliers and severed the pyrotechnic fuse. He then waited as the cops arrived and pointed guns at the kids, gripping the base of the detonator and pulling it out of the charge.

"DOWN ON THE GROUND!" they started chanting.

"NO WAY! YOU GUYS CHEATED! WE WON THE COMPETITION FAIR AND SQUARE!" Screamed the would-be martyr.

Betty watched in bemusement. He teleported closer to the kid and asked "What competition?"

"THE AMETUER TERRORIST COMPETITION!" shouted the man.

"Dude, calm down, we can appeal this, we'll sue them! ... or something," said the driver.

Betty eventually held up the disassembled charge, glaring straight at the kid with the manhole cover handle, and asked "what's this?"

"Smoke bomb, it's supposed to indicate a victory. We drop it into the diesel tank because it's not going to explode like gasoline."

"Wrong, this is composition C4 and a number eight detonator, I've used enough of these in my life, even the delay element is NATO stock, and in case you've been in a news blackout, the diesel of every gas station in Chicago has been doctored with nitro glycerine to the strength where it would function as a typical dynamite composition."

The formally indignant kid now looked shocked, ashen, and Betty could hear his intestines moving to dump their contents in preparation for massive physical activity. The kid stammered "D ... d ... ... ... as in ... ... ?"

"YOU THREE IDIOTS, VERY NEARLY, ATOMISED, EIGHT, CITY, BLOCKS!" shouted Betty, now channelling Gordon Ramsey.

The cops eventually lowered their weapons as it was now extremely clear that these guys were not hardened terrorists, and probably still lived with their moms.

And would likely become even more dependant of them for some time to come.

"NOW! YOU THREE JUST STORMED AN ARMED POLICE CORDON IN ORDER TO CARRY OUT A TERRORIST ATTACK, SO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LOSE YOUR VIRGINITY IN PRISON, YOU'D BETTER BE EXTREMELY FORTHCOMING IN EVERYTHING YOU CAN REMEMBER ABOUT THE INDIVIDUALS WHO SET UP THIS COMPETITION!"

[]

Tiffany knocked on the hotel room door and waited.

Lucy was the one that answered.

"There's something we need to talk about."

Lucy stepped back and gestured for Tiffany to enter.

Tiffany saw Callisto and Wanda sat in the room.

After seeing Wanda, Tiffany said "Okayyyyyyyy, Agent Wanda, I need a minute with these two."

Wanda realised what Tiffany was going to do. "What are you up to?"

"I'm sorry, but this is personal, just grab a coffee or something."

Wanda continued to glare for half a minute.

Eventually Wanda stood up and walked to the door, and in perfect imitation of Sgt Schultz, said "I know nothhhiiinnnnng!"

Once they were alone, Tiffany said "In case that wasn't a big enough clue for you, this conversation never happened, we just talked about personal stuff, okay? I need a favour."

[]

"I don't have time- correction, COUNTLESS LIVES, don't have time, for you to be giving me the run around, and forcing me to listen to the theme from 'Friends' over and over again, Harman's mercenaries got resupplied recently, the codes on the delay fuse and the detonator are too recent to have been embezzled prior to his time of departure, and I'm curious about where he managed to find hundreds of cube metres of trinitroglycerine days after breaking out of prison."

"We just can't help you, I'm sorry, but you must stop your activities immediately."

"Stop my activities? Stop trying to save lives? Those activities? You're inciting me to commit depraved indifference? Are you tha- You know what? Bollocks! Thanks for your time."

Betty hung up, "Christ on a bicycle, I swear these bureaucrats are getting worse," he then walked into the gas station shop, pulling out some dollar bills and a notepad, he tore out an empty page and picked up a box of aspirin, leaving the notes and a message describing the trade before swallowing two tablets as he re-emerged from the shop.

He then used the flight ring to thoughtcast 'Jodie, Betty, need you to commit a cybercrime in the name of the law. We're looking for any recent movements of trinitroglycerine where it was either recorded as expended or destroyed, there is absolutely no way Harman's men all together made that much nitro, and the two diclonii CERTAINLY didn't make it on their own, but I can't get anyone on the other end of the line to do anything for me.'

'Betty, Jodie, on task, over.'

[]

Tom finally got the generators replaced, plugging everything in.

"You got the fuel from out of town, right?" asked Quinn.

"Yeah."

He eventually got them fired up, and Quinn could finally let go.

"Okay, let's see what else needs doing," said Quinn, she then thought cast 'Brittany, Quinn, Tom and I are now available again.'

[]

Circuit boards, polyester resin, hydrochloric acid, paint stripper ... Nothing unique.

'Jodie, Stacy, I got nothing here,'

'Stacy, Jodie, have that, I have an address for you to check out, it's in Rochelle, 32 Westville Drive, you're smelling for nitrated explosives, and any of Harman's people, over.'

'Jodie, Stacy, on task, over.'

[]

"Well, so much for subtle," said Harman as he armed the hellbox. He pressed the trigger and the charges went off, the 400kg of ANFO on the right and under side of the inner flask to eject the inner flask from the outer, sideways off the train.

The braking system had been sabotaged and they were coming up on a bridge across a river, the flask should stop just short of the bridge, and the remaining brakes would prevent the train from stopping until it was at least two kilometres away.

Harman and his mercs were now all on the truck.

They would have no trouble stopping before the bridge.

Not only that, the metajammers were on the train.

Which meant they no longer affected the vicinity of the inner flask.

The flask was built like an adamantium outhouse, so all their loot would be intact.

[]

Stacy arrived at the address and did a thorough external inspection.

Her attention was drawn by the smell of jet fuel and putrescine and cadaverine.

Accelerant plus dead bodies equals probable cause, so she pulled her phone and called 911. Stacy approached one of the windows on the upper floor, those were less likely to be mined.

"911 emergency, what service do you require?"

"I need cops and fire fighters at three two Westville drive, Rochelle, suspected homicides and there may be a time fused incendiary inside the dwelling, I'm Stacy Rowe, I'm a Legionnaire, I'm effecting entry through one of the top rear windows to locate and safe any devices."

"Have that, help is on the move."

Stacy entered the house and was almost bowled over by the smell of kerosene.

She glanced over to the single bed of the bedroom she was in. "One cadaver, ... " she continued on down stairs, the top of the house was not a logical place to start a fire.

She passed another bedroom, with a king sided bed, "two cadaver," and a third bedroom with two bunk beds, "three cadaver, four ... this is one disturbed dweeb."

Stacy continued on down through the house. All the accelerant was in bags.

No explosives around the bags.

No ignitors.

She also smelt three scents belonging to Harman's men.

She decided to check the basement.

She eventually found something that qualified as strange.

There was a length of garden wire tacked to the beams holding up the ground floor, and it was connected to a hook lamp that was connected to a series of timers all plugged into each other.

Stacy pulled the plug from the top timer.

The basement hadn't accessed by Harman or any of his men. The scent was female.

There was a strong smell of nitrated explosives down here.

Maybe bags of nitro-glycerine were stored here?

Stacy heard sirens.

She checked the front door for mines and then opened it. "Four bodies up stairs, two adults, two children, three of Harmans men were here plus one unknown female."

[]

Eventually the last of the fuel had been removed.

"Finally," said Jane as the truck pulled away, "we can get back to those damn mercenaries."

"Transport systems are now clear of mines and other devices, no bombs in place at any public gathering points, but there may still be rockets we don't know about," said Brittany, "we need someone in place in case we get any more launches."

"Maybe we could have Quinn here for air defence?" suggested Jane.

"Okay," said Brittany.

They boarded the Gridrunner which was parked in a nearby MFI car park.

"How's it going here?" asked Jane.

"Local cops in Rochelle are working the house, whoever killed that family really played with the female victims, but she was relying on the house getting smoked. Either not he precog we've been after, or she was having an off day," said Jodie.

"She?" asked Jane.

"Scents Stacy picked up around the victims showed the perpetrator to be female, none of the male scents were upstairs. Our thinking now is that the Quartermaster embezzled the explosives because his family was being held hostage, and then the perpetrator went and killed them all anyway."

"DNA's good, but only if we can find someone to compare it to. What we really need is the precog's physical appearance," said Jane, "Wish Daria would pick up her damn phone, she's either in a sulk or on an impulse again."

"I think that's a little disingenuous, Daria has her moods, but she's solid on mission objectives," said Jodie, "she knows it's important she finds that precog and gets back to us with any significant developments at the earliest opportunity, if she's out of contact, there's probably a good reason."

Eventually Jane said "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"You guess? When was the last time you two melded?" asked Jodie.

"The last time was ... ... ... eeeaaaarphhhhh ... ... I can't remember," admitted Jane.

"You've been at each other a lot lately, next time you two have a minute, do it. Before one of us kills one of you."

"Okay," said Jane. She then looked around and asked "where's Brittany?"

"Hi," said Brittany from outside.

Jane and Jodie went out to see a tall white haired man in a suit. This man said "Just the person I wanted to see. Please don't think you can hide from us."

"Who's 'us?'" asked Jane.

"CIA. ... I guess we were too late."

"Yeah, well, better late than ... What exactly could you have brought to this?" asked Jane, "Come to think of it, why show up in person? Phone would have been faster."

" ... You really think you got away with it don't you?" Asked the man.

After puzzling for a second, Jane walked down the ramp to him and said "Lives are at stake. I know that doesn't quite register in your world, but if you hold back on something we need to know right the hell now and someone dies because of it, I will guarantee it to be your problem by any means available."

"You use that uranium, you will absolutely wish you hadn't."

Jane was taken aback, but eventually asked "Uranium? ... Enriched or depleted?"

"Don't play games, if you make us get serious on-"

"CRYING OUT LOUD, WHERE THE HELL'S DARIA?" shouted Jane, now officially over this 'calm and patient' crap.

"You don't have clearance to know that," said the man.

Jane was again looking at him with that surprised look. She eventually said "That's an odd thing for you to respond to. That's an odd way for you to respond to it too. ... DARIA, HAS BEEN MISSING, FOR OVER A DAY! ... WHERE IS SHE?"

"You want to know?" asked the man.

"YOU, WANT TO TELL ME," said Jane.

"Or what?" asked the man. "What are you threatening?"

"What's your name? I didn't catch it," asked Jane.

"Agent Fleming," replied the man.

"Okay. Agent Fleming," said Jane, as she wrapped his jacket lapels around her hands, "I'm arresting you for obstructing an investigation, you do not have to say anything, you have the right-"

"What?" asked Fleming. His incredulous state was priceless.

"You have the right to legal representation and to have someone informed of your arrest," continued Jane.

He then grabbed Jane's shoulders and said "That case I'm arresting you for theft, multiple counts of assault, treason, unlawful use of explosives,"

They continued informing each other of their rights until eventually Jodie shouted "HEY!"

They both stopped, mid struggle.

"MISSING, RADIOACTIVE, MATERIALS! URGENT! DANGER! ... Will Robinson. ... " said Jodie.

"Right," said Jane, she eventually asked "Is, the, uranium, fissionable?"

"Don't play games," said Fleming.

"Okay. I'm arresting you for obstruction," said Jane.

"I'm arresting you for theft," said Agent Fleming.

Jodie rubbed her face in frustration.

Betty then appeared and asked "Where's Brittany?"

Brittany decloaked and said "Here."

"Okay, just to update you, Tom's escorting the trucks with the bent fuel, that's all going to the refinery, they'll add a precipitating agent to knock the nitroglycerine out of the fuel, nitro will be recovered and expended on commercial mining projects or disposed of by controlled detonation, the amateur terrorist contestants are still gibbering wrecks, DA's applying for an extension so that they can still offer to not file charges in exchange for information, Stacy's still co-ordinating with Rochelle LEOs, and ... " He pointed at Jane and Fleming asking "what's going on?"

"CIA's holding Daria somewhere, and they think we stole some uranium," said Jodie.

"CIA. ... Oh for Christ's sake," he then shoved Jane away and took hold of Fleming's lapels, asking "Are we on the watch list?"

"What?" asked Jane.

"The terrorist watch list! WE'VE BEEN GETTING STATIC FROM EVERY FEDERAL AND DEFENCE INSTALLATION WE'VE CALLED!"

"Why didn't that occur to me?" asked Jodie, "I could have checked that sooner."

"Ambient inefficiency masks current inefficiency?" suggested Jane.

"Oh yeah," said Jodie.

"WHAT ARE WE DOING ON THE TERRORIST WATCHLIST?" asked Betty.

"I CAN'T REVEAL THAT, YOU KNOW THAT!" replied Fleming.

Eventually Betty released him and said "Jodie, find out what you can through the net, we need to know what was taken from where. That's what the Precog was up to."

"Right," said Jodie as she re-entered the aircraft.

Betty turned to Agent Fleming again and said "Agent Fleming. We're going to recover the uranium. If Daria hasn't been released by the time we're done, you're going to find out the true cost of all that fun you have as a bad guy, you get me?"

"I-"

"Good," interrupted Betty, he then boarded the Gridrunner along with Jane and Brittany.

Once the doors were closed, Brittany asked "how are we going to find Daria?"

"We'll worry about that later," said Jane. Her teeth were clenched.

"But we can't just leave her with the-"

"MISSING, NUCLEAR, MATERIAL, BRITTANY!" said Jane. ... "We have no choice. We spare anyone from finding that in favour of anything even finding one of our own ... ... "

"Missing fissile nuclear material," said Jodie, "enough for forty critical masses, up to thirty eight nukes. On the plus side," said Jodie.

[]

"It's an alloy," said Harman's scientist.

"Okay then," said Harman.

"What does that mean?" asked Val.

"It means we need all this," said Harman as he picked up the list and handed it to Val.

"Small industrial plot with at least 300kVA three phase supply, three phase welding gear," read Val.

"Five hundred litres hydroflouric acid," said Sal.

"Twenty 8mm Graphite electrodes," said Val.

"Mass spectrometers?" they chorused together.

"The way he explained it to me was the metals have to be made into metal halides, as metals they're inseparable, but their halides have distinct properties, we'll be able to distil them."

"You also said Uranium is pyrophoric," said Val.

"How are you going to separate the uranium from it's halide?" asked Sal.

"Plasma electrolysis," said Harman's scientist, "we thinly mix the uranium hexaflouride with argon, shove a load of electricity through that, argon will keep the uranium anions and the fluorine cations apart, we then condense the fluorine in a separate vessel."

"We're building our own nuclear fuel processing plant," said Harman, "we can't stick this in a bomb as is, it'll have to be absolutely huge for the same bang, and the tamper we'd need would make the thing impractical to move, you want to try to arrange a police escort for a wide load without revealing it's meant to smoke a city? We absolutely need metallic uranium."

Eventually, Val pulled a phone and called their boss.

"It's all set up," said the boss without needing to hear their question.

[]

"Well, they were wrong," said the assistant, "no sign of Al Qaeda affiliation. In fact, it would be incompatible with their attitudes."

"Yeah, that's because Al Qaeda are a human organisation, the Legion represent the master race," said the interrogator.

The assistant looked concerned. "What should we do then? The CIA will want to know."

"Not until we're ready. I have to prepare Daria to show the world what'll happen if we don't act now," said the interrogator. "I'll have the program ready in about an hour, prepare to wake her and speed her brain as fast as it will go."

The assistant took a final look between the interrogator's and Daria's virtual forms, and eventually said "Okay boss," before he logged off of the VR server.

"You, miss Morgendorffer, are going to make the world demand my sentinels," said Boliver Trask.

[]

End.


	7. The Future We ChooseAnticipate This

Constraints: Follows 'Please Give Me Your Full Attention'

Synopsis: The Legion set out to stop Harman's mercenaries from making population centres vanish.

The Future We Choose/Anticipate This.

Content: Violence, mention of sexual violence, swearing.

Legal: Do I really have to say this? Look, what does it say on the URL?

]:::[

Julia entered the office and Agent Fleming said "I take it you have a message for me?"

"Some questions, actually. What led you to believe the Legion are terrorists? And why the hell didn't any of you talk to me about your concerns?"

"You're a Legionnaire too, that tells us where your loyalties lie."

"I also have moral standards, Agent Fleming, my fellow Legionnaires act in an unacceptable manner, I won't support or enable it," said Julia.

"Moral standards. ... Osama has moral standards," replied Agent Fleming.

"No he doesn't. He just wants to take over the world. What makes you think the Legion are terrorists?"

"You helped Al Qaeda attack Japan, and you stole reactor fuel for what can only be terroristic purposes."

"We're mortally opposed to Al Qaeda and anyone like them, we didn't attack anything or anyone in Japan, and we were busy preventing death and destruction in Chicago when Harman's people stole that nuclear fuel, and you keep skipping past anything even resembling evidentiary links, do you even have any evidentiary links?" asked Julia.

"We have a tip off predicting your attack before the attack, right when it was predicted for, we have an Osama video claiming credit for the attack, then we had a tip-off that you guys would be attacking Chicago-"

"These tip-offs were probably from that precog we've been chasing. You're being manipulated," said Julia.

"The tips have been accurate so far," said Fleming.

"Precog," reminded Julia.

"Regardless, we've sent Daria off for interrogation, we'll have our answers soon."

"The correct answers or the answers you want to hear?" asked Julia. "You know why none of the other branches of government use extraordinary renditions?"

"You don't take your jobs seriously?" asked Fleming.

Julia laughed and said "how the hell do you keep a straight face? It's because these interrogations contaminate the evidence, they make prosecution impossible, it makes a mess."

"It also gets us the information we need to act fast," said Fleming.

"Okay, and how's that been working out?" asked Julia. "We both know the Legion has no interest in assisting terrorists. What's this really about?"

"It's about keeping America safe," said Fleming.

"No it's not," said Julia.

"That's because you're too close to see the forest. 'If you don't choose the future you want, you don't get the future you want.' How the hell doesn't that set off alarm bells?"

"You're on the Legion's case for getting people to take an interest in their future?" asked Julia.

"They're too loosely defined in their purpose," said Fleming, "I believe you yourself expressed concern about this."

"Out of concern for their survival," said Julia, "I'm now getting that having such an open ended purpose helps them do more good. That saying about a 'Jack of all trades is a master of none', that's not very accurate, in fact, the Legion has become one of the most adaptable organisations created."

"The problem with them being so open ended, is that they could decide to try their hand at being a government. What if one day they decide it's ... for the best?"

"You mean, like, a violent overthrow of the US and other nation governments? Undo everything they've worked to achieve?"

"They have such an open ended role, why not?"

"Because it's wrong," said Julia.

"Oh, right, well in that case, we can just stop worrying about them, can't we?" Said Fleming.

"You don't really think the Legion are perpetrating the current crisis, you're just using the current crisis as an excuse to nip an imagined problem in the bud," said Julia.

"Where's your proof?" asked Fleming.

"Everywhere. So many agents have jumped ship because of how retarded they perceive the management to be. Then there's your history prior to entering the CIA, remember when you were in the BATF? Your colleagues and supervisors felt you were lazy in your thinking, ham fisted in your deductions, and speaking of fists, did you get a boner every time you ordered a cavity search, or was that just an extension of your lazy thinking?"

"Have you heard of professional courtesy?" asked Agent Fleming.

"Says the man who just took interagency rivalry to a whole new level," said Julia, "I'd say we're done for now. Take my advice and release Daria. If we have to extract her, you're going to get crap canned, big time." With that she left.

]:::[

"It's them all right," said Stacy, as she sniffed around the nuclear material flask.

"Wasn't it just a little dangerous to be using explosives around enriched uranium?" asked Jane.

"Not really, that is, provided there's a flask around it," said Jodie, "aside from that, they have two diclonii with them."

"How'd that protect them from a nuclear explosion?" asked Jane.

"Making fissionable material explode like that isn't that simple," said Jodie, "you need to make a supercritical mass quickly enough and keep it together long enough for enough uranium to undergo fission for the blast you want before the fuel disperses too thinly to continue fission. It's not very efficient, tactical nukes barely use up any of their fuel, most of it remains as the uranium or plutonium it started off as."

"Really?" asked Jane.

"Really," said Jodie, "another advantage we have for the moment is that they can't use it as is, if Harman has any sense, he'd have picked up an engineer or two for designing custom vehicles and weapon systems, most engineers could transfer their skills to building a nuclear weapon very easily, most engineering disciplines require the same mathematical skills, at least some chemistry theory."

"That doesn't sound very advantageous to us," said Jane.

"The part that is advantageous to us is that they'd have to build a fuel processing plant," said Jodie, "reactor fuel ain't bomb fuel, especially this stuff, it's alloyed with aluminium, makes it easier to handle once it's been expended, makes it less likely to melt down, the process needed involves reacting the metals with a halogen such as fluorine, that turns the alloy into salts of the component metals, then you can distil, dissolve, precipitate the uranium or aluminium out of the mixture, then you reduce the uranium using electricity. Biggest question will be how quickly he wants to get this all done?"

"Assume fast, next couple of days or so," said Jane.

"Small to medium industrial plot, the need for hydrofluoric acid in the process makes things really difficult because you also need to reduce the uranium when you're done, and that isn't exactly easy, he's going to have to rotate his men to limit exposure and provide healing time because gamma rays are corrosive to organic materials," said Jodie, "He'll also want to set up all the moulds so that he can get the uranium straight in there without having the change anything in their equipment between stages, any time you stop, dismantle and re-rig, you risk contamination, and no amount of money's any good to you if you're dead."

"Money," said Jane, "Riddle me this: What the hell does our precog expect to make from all this? How many movies have there been where some idiot tries to extort money through nuclear terrorism, and instead gets their ass handed to them?"

"Smart people have stupid moments too. More likely though is that she'll try to sell her wares or sell strikes. Same industry as before, except with bigger weapons," said Jodie.

"To who?" asked Jane.

"Given the ethical salesmanship she's demonstrated so far, her list of approved customers probably include everyone from Al Qaeda to the Zapatistas. She'd have an easier time hitting targets in the United States since that's where here is, crossing borders with nuclear fuel is a pain in the ass, so she'll probably approach Al Qaeda and Aryan Nations first and foremost."

"Al Qaeda who hate women, Nazis who hate metas," said Stacy.

"Mercenaries who don't care, money is money is money, money, money," said Jodie, "She'll also have to notify her prospective customers of a nuclear strike at a given time, probably not a location so it doesn't get back to the authorities in time for them to do anything about it, and demonstrate a weapon at that time."

"So no matter what, at least one city will get smoked," said Jane.

"Unless we find them first," said Jodie, "Also, to keep from alienating prospective customers, she'll probably want to ensure that the demonstration doesn't kill any of her potential client's operatives, so middle of nowhere might seem better for her."

"I have a trail," said Stacy, "vehicle moved this way," she followed the scent. The rest of them followed her.

]:::[

"Here we are," said Wanda, "Stay frosty."

Wanda knocked on the door of the street level apartment in the street in the town in the woods of Bolivia. Their next best hope after that Japanese institute was the theatre where the precog and his or her diclonii were recently so long active.

A man in a Hawaiian shirt and beige trousers packing an MP5k opened it and asked "What?"

"You know your rivals that were fighting the Legion a while back?" asked Wanda.

"Yes?"

"We're interested in any intel anyone could provide on them," said Wanda.

"How interested?" asked the man.

"We're their enemy," said Wanda.

"And you being their enemy makes you our friend?" asked the man.

"Something like that," said Wanda. "Our interest is rather specific, they recently had an advantage over you, right?"

"Yeah, they had those aberrants and a precog that only seemed to communicate over the phone," said the man.

Wanda and Tiffany refrained from commenting on his use of the word 'Aberrant', although Tiffany was thinking of exiting through the wall next to the door when it came time to leave.

"Any conversations that anyone recorded would help. Bonus if it's audio," said Wanda.

"Alright, come in, have a seat, I'll have the information for you soon."

]:::[

Callisto looked around as she and Lucy wandered around the Honolulu beach front.

"How do they manage to fit in so well?" asked Callisto.

"Who?" asked Lucy.

"The diclonii we freed," said Callisto. "The whole trip, they were pretty much dressed the same, like some kind of army or something, in the institute, they were like concentration camp inmates, now they've made contact with their relatives and friends, they're ... "

There were diclonii involved in various activities, some were sunbathing, others surfing on rented boards, some shopping, all were dressed in as wide a variety of clothing as the humans milling around them. Some even had religious items such as crucifix or Star of David necklaces, or Islamic head scarves (imagine being in a religion where most the imagery depicts people with horns as being evil). Pictures of naked prisoners don't have much effect unless you actually realise that the naked people ARE IN FACT PEOPLE. People with personal styles, tastes, personality quirks, friends, families, histories, interests, thoughts, seeing them now reinforced the scale of the crime that had been committed against them.

"It probably helps that having experienced life in a concentration camp, suddenly funny looks caused by their horns are nothing," said Lucy.

"Yeah, as helpful as that gets anyway," said Callisto. "I'm really sick of living in a sewer. Why can't we find homes that don't smell like the inside of someone's deceased ass to live in?"

"Because I'm a recovering serial killer and the rest of us are faeces ugly," said Lucy.

A diclonius woman stopped next to them and said "I'm holding a meeting at seventeen o'clock in auditorium no. 5 at our hotel, could you come?" she held out a leaflet which held a time and place, no decorative trim or anything.

"What's it about?" asked Lucy.

"I have a proposal to make, I want to make it to everyone together," said the woman.

"Ohhhhh-kay," agreed Lucy as she accepted the leaflet.

"Thanks," said the woman as she continued on, approaching every diclonius in sight.

"A proposal?" asked Callisto.

"Yeah. She's nervous about it," said Lucy.

]:::[

The scientist finished explaining to the next guy how to introduce the hydrofluoric acid to the reactor fuel and walked over to the rest area.

They were casting the parts for one bomb at a time. Everything else was set up including the fractioning tower.

They had also set up a mass spectrometer. If they could get away with broader temperature differences in temperature, they could process the fuel a lot faster, if they had to deal with minute differences in temperature, they would need to move the halons through more slowly or the turbulence generated would disrupt the process.

Val's phone rang. Val answered it. Eventually she said "What? But we've started dissolving the ... ... Okay."

Harman walked over asking "We have to move?"

"Yep," said Val.

"Right," said Harman.

"We only really need to be stationary for distillation and electrolysis," said their scientist, "I'd rather be stationary for all of it, but practically speaking, we can fluoridise the material as we move."

"Okay, PACK IT UP PEOPLE, WE'RE RELOCATING IN TEN MINUTES!"

]:::[

"We might have something now," said Wanda.

"Took you long enough, how many days did you spend at sea?" asked Fury.

"That was unavoidable, besides, rumours that we're good people might increase the number of informants available to us," said Wanda, "speaking of informants, one of the rival cartels to the one that our favourite precog was working for, we have her voice on a flash drive, should be good for voice match, might even give us clues about her background."

"Okay, upload it and e-mail it."

"Might need to talk to NCIS about this," said Tiffany, "our precog seemed to use naval terminology when she gets stressed or tired, referred to doors as 'hatches', described Harman's people as 'good for army people,' and one conversation following my first encounter with the diclonii, she referred to me as a 'damn squid', I mean, she could be throwing the phrases in there in case the conversation get's listened in on, but I am getting a strong Marine Corps feel off of her."

"Marine corps? Someone who was discharged or who quit out of dissatisfaction maybe?"

"Other locations got mentioned, they mentioned Chechnya," said Tiffany, "we're going to try Russia for after action reports from their operation, see if anyone ever happened across two diclonius women or across any sliced up dead people."

"Okay, let me know when you get there, I'll talk to some people I know in the People's protectorate and the RRB," said Fury.

"Rocket Red Brigade?" asked Tiffany.

"Yeah, why?" asked Fury.

"No reason," said Tiffany, with barely any opacity.

When they hung up, Wanda asked "Anything that should affect my risk assessment?"

"As a meta-cop, you encounter artificially induced mutations all the time, don't you?"

"Yeesh, enough said, so RRB's mainly or all ... "

"Yep," said Tiffany.

"And the People's Protectorate?" Asked Wanda.

"Russian version of you guys," said Tiffany, "slightly Stasi-ish, used to go by the name Supreme Soviets, some people defected in the cold war, haven't really encountered them in the field, never had them come up in any briefings, more stuff I sought out myself. I guess we'll find out what they're like when we get there."

]:::[

Julia landed in the field and walked up behind Jane and Stacy as they watched the plaster as it took the shape of the tyre imprint in the mud.

"See what you mean about Fleming," said Julia as she approached them, "David Koresh could scam him. How we doing here?"

"Mack and Tom are looking in through windows at business parks and industrial estates from nearest out, hopefully they'll find something resembling a nuclear processing plant. So far they've led police to three meth labs and four moonshine stills," said Jane, "Brittany and Jodie are talking to as many cops as possible, at superintendent level or highest each jurisdiction failing that has to offer failing that, at least they're co-operating with us, anyone at the federal level's being a dick about assisting us as per policy re. Terrorist watch list nominees. What led this idiot to list us as terrorists anyway?"

"Apparently Fleming has an agenda, and this was just a convenient opportunity to forward it. Daria's ... ... Got any leads for me to pursue?"

Jane didn't really need to hear Julia say that Daria had been flown out to some place where amendments against cruel and unusual punishment and self incrimination don't exist and the Geneva convention is out and out ignored, and what Julia did in switching to asking about the case went back to what Jane had been saying earlier about the greater urgency the missing enriched uranium presented.

This was not a matter of procedure, or law or anything like that, the fact was that if they didn't get that fissile material back, massive numbers of people would die, and not just in the blast, but beyond as the fallout contaminates people through contact, through ingestion, people would just keep dying after the event.

Question is what would Daria make of that when they finally turn their attention to rescuing her? Would she understand the reason for the decision or would she be unable to see beyond her pain?

Jane hoped they would find that uranium fast.

"Stacy, you and Julia try and find a vehicle that smells of Harman's folks, I can handle the tyre tread cast from here."

]:::[

Lucy and Callisto entered the room. They met Nana.

"Any idea what this is about?" asked Lucy.

"No," said Nana.

There was just about enough room to seat all the diclonii that had shown up.

Eventually the diclonius that had handed out the leaflets walked over to the podium and turned on the microphone. "Okay, your attention please?" The room quietened. "Thank you. I'm Sarah Fontaine, I'm here to propose an action, and it'll sound absurd, but I hope you all will stay for the entire length of this meeting and seriously consider what I'm proposing. ... Okay, now, having come out of that torture camp, you all probably don't feel that lucky, but we were lucky to get out of that camp at all, and we were lucky that SHIELD agent and that ... Coast guardsman," she had trouble keeping a straight face when reciting the story Tiffany had told them about being in the coast guard, but the concept of a deniable operation was not lost on them, " ... we were lucky they helped us stay free when that submarine and that battleship showed up. ... Our next stroke of luck was that the United States INS has granted us permission to stay instead of returning us to sender. Our situation has been precarious since our births, and we somehow made it. ... It is time to capitalise on this luck and give something back. ... Okay, this is what I'm proposing, and you're probably going to be asking yourselves 'well, how's this our problem?' ... Well, we weren't our rescuer's problem, they helped us, and I for one don't want to feel like an asshole sponger."

Sarah eventually got started on the proposal she was making.

]:::[

"I smell something," said Stacy as they passed a used car showroom.

Stacy homed in on a red 2.5T truck. She pulled a Geiger counter.

"I doubt they'll have contaminated it," said Julia, "they want to live, remember?"

"Right," said Stacy.

"Mud flaps would probably be the best place to check for trace, might have fallout from a manufacturing process specific to a place," said Julia.

A man in a suit approached them asking "Interested in this truck or just browsing? Either's good, but any questions, I'm here. Laos, if you're willing to endorse my business, I'd be willing to offer a discount."

"Yeah, who sold you this truck?" asked Julia.

"I can find out, but whatever it's service history, you can rest assured we made good any flaws," he said.

"These are new mud flaps," said Stacy, "Paint smells new, we're not going to get any trace off of this."

"Trace? What the ... "

Julia said "we're running an investigation, when did you receive this truck?"

"Well, at least a week-" said the man.

"BEFORE you attempt to lie to me, you need to know that my friend here has enhanced smell, and she's smelling a number of individuals who stole a shipment of fissionable material yesterday, so by lying to us, you're aiding terrorists, and we still have lots and lots of lovely Federal prisons that you could visit on the government's dime! The food's great - and you'll love the nightlife. Now, who did this truck come from?" asked Julia.

]:::[

They pulled over and the men driving the truck with the uranium on it swapped with two from the minibus in front.

"Boss, all the fuel's been reacted," said the man who had been fluoridising the material.

"Val, Sal, do we have a safe destination yet? We've been changing our minds every four hours," asked Harman.

"You'd know if we knew," said Val.

"Our boss just said she'd call when she had a plan," said Sal.

"Right, don't suppose she'd be willing to tell us what it is that keeps happening?" asked Harman.

"Same thing?" asked Val.

"Why'd you ask about that?" asked Sal.

"So it is the same thing? That case, what is it?" asked Harman.

" ... We don't know either," said Val.

"We keep asking but she keeps saying she needs to figure this out," said Sal, "this is a little creepy, first three times, she did say 'Cops will be there', but then she stopped talking to us."

"Information control could seem essential to her for diagnosis of the problem," said Val.

"She might also suspect one of your me-"

"No," said Harman.

Sal said "it's possible."

"I'd know if it was one of mine," said Harman.

"Well, then maybe it's something else," said Val.

They eventually resumed their journey.

]:::[

"Sooo, this, Nintendo detector?" asked Brittany as Jodie and Charles loaded it onto the Gridrunner.

"Neutrino detector," said Jodie, "Charles and I have been working on it for a while, it seems to work, it should detect Harman's uranium as it undergoes beta decay."

"Neutrinos lose so little energy that they are a good way of working out what's going on in a stellar core without having to wait for the heat to make it's way through the star's mantle," said Charles, "it won't matter how much lead they put on that uranium, the neutrinos will get through."

"Problem is we'd need to be in the path of those neutrinos, U235 has a really long half life, and with us being on the terrorist watch list, overflying population centres at two or three hundred AGL is going to get us some attention," said Jodie.

"No way around it," said Brittany.

"Nope. Charles will accompany me with a load of confinement mist bombs, that way, as soon as we find these assholes, we can contain them," said Jodie, she then added "provided they haven't set up any radiation containment fields."

"Well, what happens if they do have those containment fields?" asked Brittany.

"We fail to notice them," said Jodie.

"Oh, okay. I guess I should stay here and watch the phones," said Brittany "I mean, I know how to fight a mean war, but I'm not so good at investigation."

"Well, we're investigating former special forces mercenaries," said Jodie, "in fact, thinking about it, I think there's a good chance our precog is also ex military. Something about her style and the breadth of her knowledge. Harman's not been planning that much of this, the precog had to set things up and hand out instructions to get Harman's men to do what was needed, I wonder if-"

"What?" asked Brittany.

"That DNA sample Rochelle PD entered into CODIS should have been back by now. If the precog's ex military, her DNA would be on record, but that could be blocked, metro cops wouldn't get an answer off of CODIS, but the applicable military cops would be notified. Except they're all looking either for us or the Uranium, case notes saying dead people in a house might not grab their attention," said Jodie.

"You mean no one will follow it up?" asked Brittany.

"If they don't, I will," said Jodie.

]:::[

"My tastebuds are discussing a mutiny," said one of Harman's men "I may need to execute some of them to quell it."

"You know the radiological diet," said Harman "minimum biotic, and the least biotic foods are-"

"Energy foods, I know boss," said the soldier as he peeled back the cover and added the boiling water to the pot noodle.

They had been doing this for a day before the train robbery, and now they had to continue until they were done handling the uranium close in. As soon as they got their bombs built, they could basically keep their distance most of the time, only handling the device to deliver it to their targets.

But they would still need to stay on the minimum biotic diet until they were no longer dealing with the bombs and even then they'd have to wait at least a week to allow their bowels to fully heal. This seemed really pointless with their radiation containment fields preventing both gamma rays and neutrinos from escaping, but in the event that the field generator packed in, they would need o be able to continue without until the field generator could be repaired.

The plan was to bury the devices in concrete. These particular weapons would be about the size of a typical trash can, the plan was to find a nowhere spot that was in the middle of a population centre they would offer to hit in exchange for a load of money.

But only if they could get the material reduced.

They were able to park up in lay bys and get on with distillation there, but if they had to use their vehicle batteries or a portable generator to reduce the hex, this regime would continue for months. Worse, they'd be using even more energy keeping the condenser at the correct temperature over that longer period of time, and stopping and restarting the process as you constantly relocate is a serious inconvenience.

They were now completely off the road and had been so for way too long, what were they-

"Boss, possible contact, tree copse at our eleven o'clock," said the driver.

Everyone in the vehicle readied themselves with their weapons, one soldier near the back window signalled the alert to the driver in the processing van.

The processing van stopped and the lead van continued until they were at the minimum response time in the event of a rocket or missile launch.

They stopped and disembarked, forming a line. They slowly advanced on the copse until they arrived and saw the five soft walled trucks parked within.

They quickly worked to check there were no x-rays loitering.

"So, what was in that one?" asked Harman.

"Generator, five hundred kVA, and there's about twelve cube metres of diesel fuel," said the first soldier.

The others had similar answers.

"Cool. ... Grab the hex."

]:::[

Julia was just about the only one who could continue for five days straight, anyone else would be flying into buildings if they didn't grab some sleep.

Jodie and Charles had been flying around using the neutrino detector, hopefully Harman's people don't have radiation containment force fields.

Things were getting a little stupid. They had covered just about all the land Harman and his mercs could have reached on road, air force had been scrutinising the sky since the alarm was raised, even stealth aircraft would have had problems because there had been so many fighters in the area that no stealth advantage would have stopped them from being seen.

Yet they hadn't been found.

Julia had this feeling that they had over flown Harman and his men without realising it.

It would help if they had Daria with them.

In fact, she was starting to consider proposing they find Daria first.

]:::[

Tiffany closed the folder saying "This is crap."

"Which part?" asked Wanda.

"ALL OF IT!" said Tiffany. She sat there glaring at the pile of folders filled with after action reports.

"How do you figure?" asked Wanda.

"You have three people, they make statements, two are in sync, one isn't, the liar is ... ?"

"Probably the one out of sync, but not necessarily," said Wanda, "They're not all RRB you know. Most these after actions came from regular army."

"That's where Rocket Reds get their attitude," said Tiffany, "a product of the prevailing attitude towards the internationally accepted rules of war, they're used to tough people scaring populations into obedience, and can't seem to grasp why it doesn't seem to work in Chechnya. These reports claim they got to the location after the Chechen rebels gleefully murdered the locals. Guess why they usually get away with their claims?"

"Russians and Chechyans use the same small arms?" guessed Wanda.

"The two in sync are Amnesty International and the Central Intelligence Agency. AIs observers in the Chechyan population, CIA spooks in the Russian Army. Of course, the presence of the spooks is classified, so their testimony will never appear in any war crimes tribunal. "

"Okay, so we want some candour and the Russians don't want to be candid," said Wanda, "any suggestions?"

Tiffany sighed, starting to re-box the folders and said "I have a few ideas, I just don't like them, and if you want to double our progress, neither will you."

Wanda looked apprehensive. She eventually asked "what do you have in mind?"

]:::[

The bar was loud with cheers and shouts, breaking glass, and sounded like the male locker room at Lawndale High following a victorious Gridiron game.

"This had better get us the information we need," growled Wanda as she ad Tiffany stood there in their short skirts and tube tops and medium heeled boots.

"The only easy d-"

"I will co-opt your powers and fuse your feet with the pavement if I hear any more glib lines relating to your day job," growled Wanda.

" ... ... Okay, standby, standby ... and go."

They entered the boozer.

]:::[

One interesting thing about running an undercover operation is that you generally keep your personal details as similar as possible, that way you don't have to think as hard as you lie your ass off to your subjects.

"Hello pretty ladies," slurred one soldier.

"What are your pretty names?" slurred another.

"I'm Tiffany, this is Wanda, one of us is in the navy, the other's a SHIELD cop. Can you guess which of us is which?"

And sometimes you don't have to lie at all, just omit that you're there on business.

"Which navy? You sound foreign," said a soldier.

"What do you mean 'which navy'? The only navy on the planet is the United States Navy, everyone else just has a collection of boats and morons," said Tiffany, prompting some "Oooooh,"s.

And sometimes you just have to take a chance and start dissing the armed forces to which a drunken crowd with NVQs in killing people and unhealthy blood alcohol levels and-

"Tiffany dear, that's not nice," purred Wanda.

Tiffany chuckled and replied "Yeah, your right, we shouldn't hold these guys to our standards," she then said to the crowd "Yeah, you guys have a Navy ... I hear."

"FUCK THE NAVY, WE'RE ARMY!" shouted one of the men that had greeted the two of them, this prompted cheers among the other patrons.

Of course, the US is unlikely to ever have a monopoly on inter services rivalry.

"Heyyy, you're the navy girl, and she's the SHIELD girl, right?" asked another.

"Damn, my tentacles are showing, aren't they?" said Tiffany as she self consciously patted herself down looking for imaginary tenticles.

"Tentacles?" asked the man.

"Don't tell me you don't know any US armed forces slang," groaned Tiffany, "honestly, I know the cold war is over, but we still get training on your slang and terminology, okay, what does the term 'Jar Head' refer to?"

"Errr, green berets?" suggested one drunk.

"Noo, it's Naval Infantary, their ... maritimes?" slurred one drunk.

"Marine Corps, it's their Marines," slurred another.

This was more like it. Getting your subjects to relax around you so they'll talk openly. Normally Wanda would have thought she'd be better at this than Tiffany, but you do need to know the mentality to get your foot in the door. To the detriment of her pride, Tiffany was taking the lead.

"YOU," said Tiffany, to the man who had answered correctly, "Are thinking too clearly. TEA TOTALLER! TEA TOTALLER! SCARED OF A LITTLE DRINK YOU ARE!"

This caused the crowd to erupt into laughter. This also put Tiffany potentially in a corner of having to accept a drinking challenge.

]:::[

"Jane, I think we need Daria if we want to find the Uranium," said Julia, "We're making no headway, we probably flew right past them, we need whatever Daria was able to find out, and she might have a better perspective."

They had met up on the Gridrunner for a meeting.

"Same problem as with the Uranium, how do we find her?" asked Jane.

"My telelocation ability," said Julia, slowly and clearly.

"AH! Right," said Jane, slapping herself across her face, "stupid sleep deprivation. Boss?"

Brittany nodded and said "JODIE, RETURN TO BASE!"

]:::[

"Have you started yet?" asked Tiffany.

She was actually showing some strain, but not as much as the Russian soldier sat opposite her. They were arm wrestling.

"I ... Wassss ... ... Goinnnnnn- AHHHH!" he said before he lost, to the mirth of the others.

"I wonder if those horned girls I heard about are any good at this?" asked Tiffany.

"Horned girls?" asked one of the soldiers.

"Yeah, I heard about these two girls with horns and telekinetic powers were seen around here or Chechnya or someplace like that," said Tiffany.

"YEAH, I SAW THEM, THEY-" started one.

"They're a myth," said another, interrupting the guy.

"Quiet you," said Tiffany, she then addressed the guy who had responded first saying "You, name and speciality?"

"Antin Maksim, Sniper."

"So what did you see?" asked Tiffany.

"Okay, you know there's this tail extending north west of Groznyy, right?"

"Yeah?"

"I was eight miles up that tail, I was on this old oil tank, looking west, watching for rebels in these suburbs, and I saw this rebel and he was conversing with this woman with pink hair and horns growing out of her head, at first I thought they were some kind of personal communications equipment or something, but I got a look at where the objects connected with her scalp."

"Sounds like one of them," said Tiffany, "Anything happen?"

"I reported this to the captain, he ordered a fire team in to capture the rebel and the girl, I was to provide sniper cover from my position, we had a platoon attack from the south west as a diversion, make noise, fire team approaches from the north with suppressed weapons."

"How long did the prep take for that?"

"About half an hour, we position Spetsnaz fire teams all over to hole up in case we need them, I was in such a team, the platoon was in an APC, my job was to provide additional support if needed, but I only had one view of the area. I ended up killing several of the rebels that responded to the overt action, the girl and the rebel retreated from the overt platoon towards the fire team, I directed the fire team to intercept. "

"What happened when they got there?" asked Tiffany.

Antin sighed and said "The Spetsnaz team were ripped apart, literally. It was the strangest thing. ... I reported the situation, and my CO ordered me to kill them. I followed orders as best I could, but none of my shots impacted the targets. The girl looked towards me. She couldn't see me, I was about four hundred metres away, I shot something else to try to work out what was wrong with my sights, but there was no malfunction. The shots were simply being deflected. Being unable to locate me, the girl smiled and flipped me off."

"Some of the rebel prisoners we took bragged about the two girls and said something about a precog. Apparently, this precog can predict the future, would keep the Chechyan criminals safe," said another.

The stories kept coming.

]:::[

Julia got off the elevator with Brittany and walked over to Daria's apartment. They used the skeleton key to enter it, and they looked around.

After looking around the room, Julia asked "are you sure you got enough books there Daria?"

"So, what's going to be a personal item?" asked Brittany.

"I'll just have to touch things until I feel something," said Julia. She then walked around, running her fingers over the rows of books.

Eventually Julia had completed the books.

"Well?" asked Brittany.

"Insufficient psychic energy," said Julia, "She's into reading, but her devotion to all these books is spread too thin by their number."

"So now what?" asked Brittany.

"Now ... ... If Daria finds out about this, she's going to melt my brain. Brittany, how many telepaths does it take to screw in a light bulb?" said Julia. She then started looking around the room. She lifted the skirt of the bed and looked under it, and found it strange that there was a centre post linked to the four other legs, but some beds were like that.

She then looked through the wardrobe.

She failed to locate it there.

Where else?

She tried the utility room, with Brittany watching looking confused.

Julia eventually returned to the bedroom and looked around confused and frustrated.

She then looked at the bed again and realised that the centre post could serve another purpose, especially with the structural elements on the floor, why would anyone do that? It makes moving the bed a pain in the ass.

Julia got on her hands and knees and crawled around the head of the bed, and found what she was looking for. Brittany looked under the bed from the front. Julia was not visible. Brittany lifted her head and saw Julia pulling something, but looking under the bed again showed no sign of Julia. Julia pulled a box out from under the bed. Brittany walked around and looked under the bed, seeing the triangular compartment that couldn't possible occupy the same space as the empty space she kept seeing. Brittany looked under the side and reached through the frame, only to be stopped by glass which, by the symmetrical reverse image of her hand on the other side of the glass, had to be the substrate of a mirror.

Julia opened the box revealing cuffs, chains, dildos, devices with time setting dials (Delayed release devices?), electrical stimulation gear.

"Wow," said Brittany.

"Who needs a light bulb, they'll just screw whenever they get the chance," commented Julia. She touched a dildo and said "Got her. Mr. Taloquan And Son Deniable Incarceration Ltd, it's in Bangladesh."

]:::[

"So, none of you ever seen this precog?" asked Wanda.

"No," chorused the soldiers.

Wanda pulled the I-Pod with the voice on it and said "Listen to this."

The room went quiet and one of the conversations were played.

Suddenly, someone pushed through the crowd, this woman with corporal insignia on her uniform, "Excuse me, let me through," she got to the front and said "who the hell is that?"

"Our targets," said Tiffany, "what can you tell me?"

"That's the blonde bitch that ambushed me at my apartment! I WANT TO FUCKING KILL HER!"

"Ambushed yo- What did she do?"

"Fucking raped me, caused enough damage to my neck that I couldn't move for fear of severing my brain stem, had to just lay there, YOU'RE GOING TO HELP ME KILL HER!"

"If we can bring you along, it's possible we won't be able to get you a visa," said Tiffany, "first thing we'll need off of you is a description," Tiffany pulled her smart phone and turned it on, loading an electronic portraying package.

]:::[

"Hacked the CIA satellite constellation, surface is just this little shack, radar and IR reveals a complex underground structure, there's electrical, water and sewage services connected," said Jodie, "no way to determine if metajammers are in effect, but they're holding a meta, so unless notified otherwise, assume it is."

"Okay, what do we want to do then?" asked Jane.

"Betty teleports in and sees if his powers work, if not, move away until you do, repeat this procedure at least twice on different vectors, once we have the location, Quinn, I'll direct you to hit the metajammer with an electron beam. Then we pile in, secure the place, and make off with Daria."

"CIA will just hate that," said Tom.

"BONUS!" they all chorused.

Brittany then said "Okay, draw weapons, PFT2s, equip them with T-wave sensors for electronic traps, no confinement mist, we don't want to be spending time on barriers we made ourselves, also pack plenty of anti-mist solvent, and BA, respirators are good against sedatives, but not against asphixiants, which would be highly effective in such structures, wheels up in ten minutes."

]:::[

Trask was watching the way the simulation was progressing. This was getting a little frustrating.

Daria's brain had been sped up so she should be perceiving double the frame rate of normal people, the problem was they had only had six days, or twelve from her point of view. Actually, he had managed to get her to experience twenty three days, sleep time normally slows your perception down, so might as well have that occur at the speed she perceives.

She was stressing, but not as much as he'd like.

The assistant appeared next to Trask and said "One of her associates, their explosives instructor, has been seen around the area, and we heard a sonic boom consistent with the shape of the Gridrunner, I think we're about to get attacked."

"Great," said Trask. After a while, he eventually said "Okay, watch from outside, and prepare to sedate her, in a minute I'll have Armalin de-limb her with a machete, that'll be your cue to sedate her, we stick her on a gurney near the entrance."

The assistant left. Trask checked his watch and said "This time will just have to be the charm."

]:::[

'Betty from Jodie, I think I have the location of the metajammer, Quinn, target is five metres from the surface structure four three degrees, I'm using masers to generate steam, Betty, as soon as you're able, beam everyone into the surface installation, everyone else join shoulders for teleportation.'

'Quinn ready.'

'Betty Ready.'

'Insertion Team Ready.'

Jodie fired the masers at the point she had identified generating the visual effects Quinn needed for an aiming point and thought cast 'Quinn from Jodie, fire at your convenience.'

'From Quinn, firing now.'

]:::[

Trask emerged from the VR gear and noticed the alarms were sounding.

He looked through the window to where Daria was still being prepped for relocation.

The sound of PFT shots and things breaking from PFT shots told him "this sucks."

This was about two seconds before the door left it's hinges and three identical women wearing breathing apparatus armed with PFT M3s entered.

He was knocked out.

He then awoke staring at his crotch, tied to a chair.

He looked up and saw the Legion staring back at him.

"Hi Trask," said Jane.

"I suppose I should beg for mercy or some other crap, right?" Asked Trask.

"Actually you should be abiding by your parole conditions, one of those conditions stay within the state you were released to, only you were outside the country, and then there's the no more crimes, don't even litter or park obstructively, only you assaulted a Legionnaire, equivalent to a deputy marshal," said Jane, "you must love prison. Either one of those counts on their own will return you to it."

"Oh yeah, that's right, you're supposed to be the good guys, aren't you?" said Trask.

"That's what people who save the world constantly are generally referred to," said Jane.

"Yeah, well, I guess your perspective on what constitutes saving the world is just different is all," said Trask.

"Right," said Jane. "FYI: If Daria wakes up before we've dropped you off, she is not wearing anything that'll suppress her powers, so if you haven't applied enough sedatives to her, don't be surprised if you find your brains draining out your ear holes."

]:::[

"Okay, we have five possibilities," said Tiffany, as she scrolled down the thumbnails.

"That one," said Corporal Yuliya Yadviga, pointing at a captain.

Tiffany clicked the thumbnail, and the face enlarged to the full extents (of the smart phone screen).

"You're certain?"

"Sadistic bitch held my eyelids open when she jammed that dick belt into me, yeah, that's her," said Yuliya.

Tiffany scrolled down, "Captain Kerry Thompson, deceased as of two years ago."

"So I was raped by a ghost? She seemed pretty alive to me."

"Blown up while on operations in Afghanistan, huge charge, DNA recovered from shrapnel, but nothing of her body was recovered. Blast was big enough to pulverise bones, so KIA was a reasonable assumption at the time," said Tiffany, "she's a precog, she could have tipped off the Taliban or Al Qaeda months in advance. Rest of her unit was recovered mostly intact, white butterfly effect. DNA could have come from a bag of blood placed on one side of the bomb."

"So now what?" asked Yuliya.

"We can use her appearance to narrow her location down to a country," said Tiffany, "Well, a continent, actually, I doubt she'd want to cross oceans hiding in a lifeboat on a container ship, but I can imagine her skipping border control on land borders, Wanda, need you to do the ... "

Wanda picked up the smart phone and loaded up the US INS network and uploaded the picture for a search.

]:::[

"Jane."

Jane looked over to Daria. They were in the back of the Gridrunner. "Daria. Sorry we took so long getting around to you, but Harm's goons made off with a load of reactor fuel."

Daria sat up and felt most her body lock up. "D-AAAHHHHHHHH. One of those huh?"

"You've been in VR for seven days," said Jane "get yourself into the TIDES pool when we return."

"Uh-huh. Harm's goons made off with a load of reactor fuel, I take it it's not weapon's useable uranium."

"It may have been refined since it was taken."

"How many critical masses?" asked Daria.

"Forty," said Jane.

"In practical terms, thirty eight 3KT yield devices, ten 400KT yield devices, or maybe five of the low end hydrogen devices," said Daria.

"Yeah," said Jane, "that's why I convinced Brittany we needed to go after the fissile material first."

"Okay," said Daria, "it sounds like you still haven't recovered the material though."

"No. Thing is we think we must have passed them a bunch of times. Look, I'm sorry I convinced Brittany to leave you there, as soon as we've recovered the uranium, I'll let you beat the crap out of me, I won't resist, but anything you can bring to the investigation, we need it."

Daria sighed and said "My head's a little out of the game, but I'll see what I can come up with. ... That damn precog's the key, get me a computer terminal."

"Flight deck," said Jane.

"Right," said Daria as she got up and walked. Jane used her magnetic powers to assist Daria.

They entered the passenger seating area and Daria passed Trask. She turned to look at him. "Huh." She then continued on.

Daria entered the flight deck where Brittany said "You okay Daria?"

"Nothing about a year in a TIDES pool won't cure. Need to use a terminal," said Daria as she sat at one of the rear stations.

She opened the electronic sketch program and set to work.

"Sorry we left you in there so long Daria," said Jodie.

"Missing fissionable material Jodie, I concur," said Daria.

"Glad you do, but, I still feel-"

"You all feel that way, I appreciate it, I'm almost ready with the E-fit."

"Okay. You may need me to hack the various databases to use it though, we're on the terrorist watchlist."

"I was renditioned to another country for interrogation?" asked Daria.

"Yeah. Agent Flem-"

"Enough said. He's CIA now?" asked Daria.

"Yes," said Jodie.

"I hope it was his idea to hire Trask, if there's two as stupid as him," said Daria.

"He's a REMF," said Julia as she entered. "CIA management is full of them. I don't have to explain REMF do I?"

"Nope," said Jodie, "hopefully he'll never see a parole hearing again."

"Ready now," said Daria.

"Okay," said Jodie. She then hacked into the first database. "Want to try the military databases first, should be able to conclude those avenues sooner."

]:::[

"Okay, latest movement of her likeness entered Rome, Italy yesterday from O'Hare, Chigago," said Wanda.

"Let's try Britain," said Tiffany.

"Britain?" asked Wanda and Yuliya.

"English speaker, English speaking, all she'd need to work on is the accent and a few slang words," said Tiffany, "of course you're trading cultural difference for obstructed exits, UK's densely populated, riddled with cameras ... ... Having said that, she'd have plenty of people to hide among, unless she does something to really draw someone's attention, she's just not going to be seen."

"There's always a chance," said Wanda, "I'll get onto MI5, what about the rest of Europe?"

"We'll have to contact all of ... ... " Tiffany trailed off.

"Or ... ... " Prompted Wanda.

"Yuliya. This probably isn't your favourite topic, but did you get the impression that this was Kerry's first time committing rape?"

"Honestly? No, I know ... ... a thing or two about the mentality of a torturer, and from that I think a lot of what she did was habitual and too playful for it to be her first time, what exactly are you thinking?" Asked Yuliya.

"Okay, the good news is I think I know how we can find her. The bad news is, it can't be us that captures her," said Tiffany.

"WHAT?" asked Yuliya.

"She's a precog, but she isn't omniscient, if she doesn't know how she got found, she can't evade. I think we can locate her by her habits. We narrow it down to a town, we can come up with an alternate means of getting her arrested. We'll be looking for footage or accounts of her appearing at nightclubs or red light districts," said Tiffany, she was thinking again, "trying to think what her criteria is likely to be."

"Rapists get into their criminal behaviour early, like with serial killers, they start in their teens," said Wanda, she went to work on her palmtop saying "NCIS might have something on her, maybe complaints that were filed and later dropped, maybe complaining witnesses experienced fatal accidents after or even before they lodged the complaint, anyone who mysteriously died could give us her targeting criteria, otherwise we'll end up looking all over the place. Did she say anything while she was assaulting you? That could also assist us."

"She mentioned she appreciated my technique wi ... ... " Yuliya looked agitated as she thought through what she was going to say.

"If this is going into war crimes you yourself have committed, we'd need to obtain a warrant to prosecute for such acts, and that would require a person's name or a location which could lead us to witnesses, so keep those points vague and we won't have the ability to pursue you, and that's pretending any Russian judge would approve extradition in the first place. You can check with your base's JAG attorney, but we need to get into Kerry's mind," said Wanda.

"Okay, just don't get into any moods just because you're not used to the way Russians do war."

]:::[

"Five candidates," said Jodie.

"Not enough detail in the memory I accessed," said Daria, "This one, Kerry, she's supposed to be dead. Blasted into a fine mist in Afghanistan."

"So we eliminate her?" asked Jane.

"No, we focus on her, the others have 'Status: Active' on their brief summaries, that would make it difficult to manage terrorists and mercenaries," said Daria.

Jane saluted saying "Morning General, oh hang on a minute." She then put the thumb of her saluting hand near her ear and the pinkie finger near her mouth saying "Harm, this is not a good time, you're just going to have to kill US soldiers without me for now. Okay?"

"I suppose if we call NCIS for assistance with this, they'll tell us where to stick it," said Daria.

"I'll see if they got internet access to any records relating to Kerry and anyone she worked with," said Jodie, "we think she sexually assaulted some of the people she killed. Speaking of, we should get back to that police station see if CODIS turned up anything."

"How long has that been going on?" asked Daria.

" ... ... ... Oh crap. Okay, I'll hack CODIS."

Half a minute later Jodie said "They never ran it."

"You can bet the CIA did," said Jane.

"Okay, hang on," said Jodie.

Half a minute later she said "CIA use of CODIS doesn't relate to anyone resembling Kerry."

"Maybe they ran it from a police station somewhere else."

"Even I can't go through that many samples," said Jodie. "If the CIA wanted to avoid me, they'd simply go to the places where the DNA data is being stored and work offline."

"Are the CIA actually good for anything besides helping terrorists evade capture?" asked Jane.

"We should stick with Kerry for now, she actually makes the most sense, and the style of the hand to hand combat that left the bruises on the bodies at that cartel's base strongly resembled individuals schooled in Semper Fu," said Daria, "she'd have to know the military internally to be as effective as she has been, Jodie, see what AA and personal reports you can hack, maybe we can corroborate a sexually abusive precog."

]:::[

"Again?" moaned Val.

"Yes, again," said their boss, "we'll find a city, just switch to Alcova, Wyoming."

"Alcova? Boss, I've been through there, there's not that many people, aside from not making much of an impact, we'll stand out."

"You've standing out anyway, besides, you're not nuking the town, there's this big flat slope with a road on top and a lake behind it."

Val grinned maniacally.

"You'll need to put it in a drum full of concrete, but the yield should be sufficient to make that dam go away. Because it's a gravity dam, it's not considered a terrorist target because the amount of conventional explosives required would preclude most terrorists from being able to attack it, so provided you don't do something to draw too much attention to yourselves, you should be able to deliver the nuke and escape unremembered and unnoticed. Now wipe that maniacal grin off your face and get on with it."

"Right boss," said Val as she hung up. "Guess what we're doing?"

]:::[

"Jodie, I'm starting to see a pattern here. Every couple of weeks someone at least a couple of pay grades below Kerry suddenly get poor performance reviews, about a third of them get killed by walking in front of a tank, or walking into an aircraft's propellers, or something," said Daria.

"Seeing the same thing with the reports I'm seeing. Not much to go on with who she targets, I mean, she goes for marines and navy, all faiths, some happy and bubbly, some moody, some strong, some weak, some have parents in the military, some are first generation in the military, black, white, Asian," said Jodie.

"Means she has limited opportunity within the military, and has to take any snatch she can get away with assaulting," said Daria. "we might have better luck if we can figure out who she's been assaulting since she faked her death."

"Garden City might give us a better picture," said Jodie.

"Okay," said Daria, "we still need to keep up the pressure on Harman and the mercenaries, glad as I am to be out of there, the precog probably predicted the break in your search efforts and took this opportunity to get Harman and company somewhere the hell else."

"We expanded our search radius across an entire state before we came after you," said Jodie.

"Assume they've built the nukes, where do they stick them?" asked Daria.

"Middle of the population centre," said Jodie, "they don't want to be seen doing it, and they don't want it to be removed intentionally or accidentally, so no dumpsters, sewers might get inspected, any construction work that was recently carried out might have a nuke buried in any concrete slabs that were left to cure overnight, bearing in mind there are two diclonii working with them, they could put the nukes in a lot of places, they don't want a Geiger counter detecting it, and they don't want our neutrino detectors, so they're using radiation shields, those need power. Could be buried in someone's back yard."

"Burial leaves disturbances that radar and infra-red can pick up," said Daria.

"I'll rig a program to compare visual imagery to radar imagery, that way we can exclude buildings," said Jodie.

"What about cemeteries?" asked Daria.

"We can get the age of a burial, if they pick a plot that's been undisturbed for long enough, that'll give us their nuke," said Jodie.

"What if they use a rocket?" asked Jane.

"How would they guide it?" asked Mack.

"Wouldn't need to," said Daria and Jodie simultaneously.

"Same engineers they had design the nuke, they'd also be able to project a rocket's trajectory if given the overall mass and the propellant's specific impulse, it would also require some fluid dynamics expertise to work out how tight to construct the exhaust, but given all that, they'd have the means to put the nuke where they need it to be for maximum effect," said Jodie, "that would probably be a massive ground disturbance though, you'd bury it in a pipe at the launch angle, have some explosive device remove the soil prior to launch."

]:::[

Wanda looked over to Tiffany again and eventually asked "You're dourer than usual." Tiffany had been scowling at the back of the seat right in front of her the whole flight.

"I'm glad we couldn't get her a visa," said Tiffany, "I know I shouldn't say stuff like this, but that's the one woman on this planet I know of that I feel had it coming."

"Yeah, I'm sure you've never broken the rules of war," said Wanda.

"Not indiscriminately," said Tiffany, "it's not like I come away with a guilty conscience, but I also don't get off on other people suffering, and I have at least enough self control to ensure that the people I go after are actually involved in enemy activity, the crap she pulled in Chechnya, made me want to kill her."

"As a cop, I find myself wanting to kill a lot of the suspects I end interviewing," said Wanda, "welcome to my world."

"You don't choose the future you want, you don't get the future you want," said Tiffany.

"Legion motto. Sorry you left?" asked Wanda.

"I was expelled," said Tiffany.

"You were only there when you absolutely had to be," said Wanda "Might as well have left."

"I know. ... This is just one of those times when I think back to Bakerson's attempt to recruit the Legion. I wasn't that much into deep philosophy or anything, the difference between heroes and soldiers just went completely over my head, but this is why they maintained their independence. DOJ gives them so much more independence of action, but me going off around the world saving lives would need orders to do so, or I get all kinds of done for insubordination or whatever else."

"There's that. Maybe administrative separation would be an improvement," said Wanda.

"Food for thought," said Tiffany.

]:::[

"Okay, we're approaching Garden City," said Jodie.

"Okay, if Julia and myself work Garden City, you and everyone else try to find the nuclear weapons, sound like a plan?" asked Daria.

"Yeah, Brittany?" asked Jodie.

"Umm, make it so?" responded Brittany.

]:::[

They landed at the airport, having let Julia and Daria off over the city.

Brittany and Jodie emerged from the aircraft and headed for the manager's office. "Maybe they'll understand once we explain to them that we're not the terrorists," said Brittany.

"I doubt it, " said Jodie, "I'll hold their attention, there's something I need you to do."

Jodie started her explanation.

]:::[

"Okay, what do we want to do?" asked the inspector, now they had assembled the entire shift into the briefing room.

"We're looking for anyone who had any contact with this individual, real name's Kerry Thompson, thought to have been killed in action two years ago, we now believe she faked her death to become a mercenary," said Daria.

"We're now hoping to chase her down, but we need information on her personal habits in order to do so," said Julia. "We think Kerry is a rapist, she assaulted someone she then killed at a house in Rochelle before she killed her, and we think she was raping women in her unit prior to her desertion, now, because she deserted at a time of war, the witnesses you uncover won't have to appear in court for us to put her away, but we do need to find her, and that means figuring out her personal tastes, the people she targeted while in the Marine Corps would have been skewed by what was available to her and what she thought she could get away with."

"We're going to need you to go door to door, ask if anyone has seen her, they'll probably know her as her alias Miss Teak Meg," said Daria.

"Keep in mind that anyone who was raped by her would probably not be forthcoming about it, but seeing her face might prompt a reaction, recoil in terror, that kind of thing, if we get a list of names off of you, we can follow up with further interviews," said Julia.

]:::[

"But we're telling the truth, and how many cock-ups have been directly caused by 'only following orders'?" said Jodie.

"Well, I'm sorry, but Homeland Security scare the crap out of me," said the manager.

Brittany entered and asked "Any luck?"

"No," said Jodie.

"Well, we'll just have to make do with what we got then," said Brittany.

"I suppose," said Jodie.

They then left.

As soon as they were out the office, Brittany and Jodie broke into a run.

The airport manager couldn't help but think something was wrong, like he had been tricked somehow.

As soon as the Gridrunner was starting to take off, one of the fuel crew entered carrying a suitcase with a note taped to it.

"Boss, apparently the Legion paid for their fuel in cash, what's with that?"

The manager turned ashen. "Oh, nothing, just the CIA said not to sell them fuel, and they went and took it anyway, and left the money so they wouldn't be stealing."

]:::[

Jodie's phone rang. Jodie answered it saying "Jodie here."

"Phil Lien here, I got a call from a diclonius in Casper, Wyoming, they think they sensed your terrorists heading south west, probably on route 220."

"Have that, thanks."

"I'll call back with more information as I get it," said Phil. He then hung up.

Jodie changed course and hit the burners.

]:::[

One of the soldiers hooked a speaker up to his Ipod and asked "Time on target?"

"Five minutes, why?" asked Sal.

"Let me know when we're at three and a half minutes."

Sal shrugged and said "Okay."

Eventually they came off the 220 and Sal said "time on target three mike thirty."

The soldier hit play.

The Dambusters theme started to play through the speaker.

This got a laugh out of everyone.

They eventually caught sight of the step-up transformers, and the powerplant at the base of the dam. The dam itself appeared seconds later.

"Right, get the nuke into position," said Sal.

Two more soldiers did that and Sal grabbed the door handle with one of her vectors, and the arming wire with one hand.

The arming wire was poking out a plastic sleeve that led to the time delay fuse in the nuke buried in the concrete. This was the only thing stopping the nuclear weapon's fuse from counting down the 10 minutes it would take to detonate. 10 minutes. They would want to be above the current water level of the Alcova reservoir before that runs out.

They ascended the road towards the top of the dam and Sal said "Stand by ... Standby ... " She then flung the door open and pulled the arming wire, saying "Go."

The two soldiers shoved the barrel out the van and it rolled down the slope into the lake.

Sal then closed the door.

"Bombs away."

]:::[

Jodie was concentrating on the geo survey program. "Not getting anything within the city. Going to expand and look for a rocket system."

"Right," said Brittany.

Quinn entered looking at a map of Wyoming saying "Jodie, what's upstream of Casper?"

"Well, there's some farms, and Alcova ... And a gravity dam with 208718068 cube metres of water behind it!" Jodie switched her attention to the neutrino detector and turned hard, full burners.

Quinn fell against Brittany who was sat behind Jodie. "Sorry."

"I need Mack and Betty to be ready, as soon as I have the location of the nuke- YES! GOT IT! BETTY, GET MACK TO FOUR TWO DEGREES, THREE TWO MINUTES, FIVE ZERO POINT ONE NINESECOND NORTH, ONE ZERO SIX DEGREES, FOUR THREE MINUTES, ONE FOUR POINT NINE NINE SECONDS WEST, nuke's at the bottom of the slope. Mack, I'll need that nuke to be somewhere else when it goes off, Betty, I'll need a convincing surface blast when Mack reports the nuke detonating."

"ON IT," said Mack and Betty.

"What about the terrorists?" asked Brittany.

"I think I can find them, they can't be that far away, I'll have LEOs posing as road safety officers down the road looking out for them, get the vehicle they're in, but we can't let the terrorists know they're being followed," said Jodie, "that precog can't know we've only just found them, or she'll predict it and we'll never have found them in the first place."

"Huh?" asked Brittany.

"It's ... a temporal mechanics thing. Just go with me on this," said Jodie.

"Okay," said Brittany.

]:::[

Kerry awoke again. "DAMN IT, WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG HERE?"

Every dream she had showed Harman and her two Diclonii getting arrested.

She heard the occupier of the home she had invaded cry out in anticipation of further physical or sexual abuse.

Actually that might not be a bad idea, she could work off some of this stress.

Kerry stood up and headed upstairs with a glass and a pitcher of cola filled with ice cubes and lemon slices to the bedroom where she had left the woman tied to the bed, on an electric blanket, three quilts on top of her. She looked fearfully at Kerry, pleading through the gag as Kerry leered at her. The woman was probably slightly delirious from the heat she was being subjected to. "Hey there hot stuff. Ready for more?"

The perspiration was probably soaking through the first fifty millimetres of quilt and it almost certainly wasn't doing it's job.

Kerry poured herself a glass of ice cold cola and set the pitcher down on the bedside table, she slid in beside the girl, glass in hand. "nothing like a hit wet girl under you when you're enjoying an ice cold cola drink." She took a sip, as she rolled over, the glass of cool refreshing cola just centimetres from the girl's head.

"Hey, it just occurred to me, you might be thirsty."

The girl nodded, shuddering at the thought of the price of that drink. Poor girl was instructor qualified in Krav Maga. This was about the most satisfying kind of trophy, women who were trained in violence, getting brought down by Kerry's own hands. It was like catching and toying with a wild animal.

And the home invasions involved in the commission of these crimes weren't a bad thing either, stopped the walls and ceiling getting boring, always something interesting.

She couldn't stay too long of course, more than 24 hours would be pushing it.

She heard a bang with a crunch downstairs. The front door being kicked in.

This was followed a split second later by someone saying "Move, move, move," and footsteps, rapid footsteps.

Kerry got out of the bed, placing the glass on the bedside table and standing next to the door.

"Front lounge clear."

"Kitchen clear."

"Dining room clear."

Someone approached the bedroom and Kerry reached around snatching the MP5 out of the individual's hands, turning it around and shooting the man through the brainstem. She then emerged with her MP5 and shot each and every armoured individual she came across, stealing fresh MP5s as each one ran out.

She then emerged and shot the remaining armoured police officers and the plain clothed officers, wounding one. "You and I are going to have a conversation."

]:::[

"Sorry," said Tiffany.

The superintendant of Cumnor Police Station who had been listening to all the gunshots through the VOX set comms from the CO19 officers placed his radio on the desk.

"I'll take your word for it," said Superintendant Brian Potter.

They watched the footage from the police helicopter as Kerry dragged the superintendant into the neighbours car, a blue Mercedes M3 what she had apparently stolen the keys for.

"From our experience in dealing with precogs, they either need to be asleep or in a trance to predict the future," said Wanda, "we have her with her pants down now."

"Right. Well, you know the current treaties between our countries mean you basically have her anyway, I'm not throwing any more of my people at her."

"On it. Thanks for your assistance. We'll add the latest murders to the list," said Wanda as she and Tiffany left the room, going to the roof of the police station.

Once they had access to the sky, Wanda levitated herself and Tiffany and Wanda switched her radio, which she had rigged with an earwig, to VOX.

"Sierra Oscar from Maximoff, heading for last known location, request directions to target."

"Maximof, Sierra Oscar, suspect heading north west on Tumbledown Hill, speed seven zero miles an hour, over."

Wanda adjusted course and replied "Have that, North west, Tumbledown hill."

As they flew, they heard "From Sierra Oscar, suspects are slowing on approach to Oxford Road, Suspect is turning left left- FUCK!"

"Sierra Oscar From Wanda, confirm left turn onto-" Wanda then caught sight of a large fireball rising into the sky from the junction "-actually disregard, over."

As Wanda overflew Eynsham Road, she saw a blue Mercedes M3 weaving past oncoming and slower cars at idiot velocity. "Sierra Oscar, Wanda, I have the suspect, I'm going to take her off the road, over."

Wanda used her powers to lift the car off the road. She had to make this look like a departure from controlled motion, but there was one yankee to protect, this was also the reason for the charade in the first place, to stop Kerry from threatening harm to the hostage. Wanda didn't want Kerry to be aware of the presence of herself and Tiffany until at least she had decided to ditch the hostage. The car spun off the road, rolling across the ditch, through the hedge and landing right side up in the field, with both left wheels broken off.

They heard a gunshot immediately before Kerry emerged.

The hostage was dead.

Wanda took possession of Kerry's weapons and collected them, holding them about four metres over her head.

Kerry stopped and looked up.

Kerry finally noticed Wanda and Tiffany.

"Captain Kerry Thompson, this really isn't your day, is it? I am arresting you for deserting at a time of war, so many counts of treason I can't be assed to count them all, so many counts of murder that I can't be assed to count them all, so many counts of rape that I- You know what? Screw it. You are busted. End of," said Wanda.

"I can't see the fact the United States has the death penalty preventing extradition after tonight," said Tiffany, "in fact, I think the judge will make it a condition that the method of execution is the electric chair."

"Oh no, you all hate me now? How did I fail to realise that would happen?" Said Kerry, pouring on the sarcasm.

"I suppose my offer to give you a chance at having your sentence commuted to life won't draw any interest," said Wanda.

"And that chance would require from me, what exactly?"

"Tell us where your minions are," said Tiffany.

Kerry considered this for about a minute and eventually pulled her phone saying "I'll ask them."

Wanda used her powers to squash the phone into nothing.

"You are the one controlling them, you're predicting what happens when they move, so you tell us where they are now," said Wanda.

Kerry put her hands in her pockets and said "Well, one thing I will tell you, if I don't make contact in a credible manner, they'll be deciding for themselves whether to continue with the sale or to just set the nukes off in the first city they come across."

"Then you fry," said Tiffany.

Kerry grinned maniacally at Wanda and Tiffany saying "You think I'd have become a Marine if a little death scared me? You know, with our obesity rate, all those couch potatoes, once alight, they'll make a lovely light."

"Okay, death don't scare you, I'll just have to find something that will," said Wanda. Kerry suddenly fell asleep, dropping to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

Tiffany watched, and after ten seconds was about to ask Wanda what was happening when Kerry woke up looking all around her, seemingly very agitated.

Eventually she calmed down and asked "what exactly was that?"

"That was me warping your reality for ten seconds."

"Ten se- ... Wanda ... Wanda, Wanda, Wanda ... By the time I break, I'll be so insensible, I'll be telling you they're on Pluto, or sailing on a yacht under Jupiter's red eye, or checking their stock interests at the tower of commerce on Ferenginar, yeah? Any fucking where but where they actually are. ... Tiffany, you're a SEAL, tell her."

Tiffany sighed and eventually said "It's probably true."

"Hmm," commented Wanda. She then put Kerry to sleep again. "Let's find out."

]:::[

Jodie answered the phone. "Y'ello?"

"We think we have your terrorists moving south through Laramie on Route 30, I've started redeploying Diclonii volunteers around them." Said Phil.

"Sorry, volunteers?" asked Jodie.

"Yeah, the Diclonii that arrived in Hawaii and the ones that arrived at the USAES was it called? Anyway,-"

]:::[

There was just about enough room to seat all the diclonii that had shown up.

Eventually the diclonius that had handed out the leaflets walked over to the podium and turned on the microphone. "Okay, your attention please?" The room quietened. "Thank you. I'm Sarah Fontaine, I'm here to propose an action, and it'll sound absurd, but I hope you all will stay for the entire length of this meeting and seriously consider what I'm proposing. ... Okay, now, having come out of that torture camp, you all probably don't feel that lucky, but we were lucky to get out of that camp at all, and we were lucky that SHIELD agent and that ... Coast guardsman," she had trouble keeping a straight face when reciting the story Tiffany had told them about being in the coast guard, but the concept of a deniable operation was not lost on them, " ... we were lucky they helped us stay free when that submarine and that battleship showed up. ... Our next stroke of luck was that the United States INS has granted us permission to stay instead of returning us to sender. Our situation has been precarious since our births, and we somehow made it. ... It is time to capitalise on this luck and give something back. ... Okay, this is what I'm proposing, and you're probably going to be asking yourselves 'well, how's this our problem?' ... Well, we weren't our rescuer's problem, they helped us, and I for one don't want to feel like an asshole sponger.

"Now, on the news, I don't know how many of you have seen this, but today, these mercenaries, two of whom are diclonii, stole a shipment of uranium destined for a nuclear power plant, they are being guided by a precogniscient individual. It's apparently not known if they're going to use that uranium to build a full blown nuke or just a slow bomb, but if they aren't found, hundreds to thousands of people will be killed by them for the highest bidder.

"So how's this our problem? Well, it's unlikely they'll get their weapon over here, so hang out here, and nothing will probably happen. That's the small picture. Now let's look at the big picture effect. You remember how silly things got after 9/11? Patriot act, Guantanamo Bay, Operation Iraqi Freedom? And imagine us being the centre of all this just because two Diclonii were helping these guys. I work for the NSPCC, when I'm not going on holiday to places that want to use me in a science experiment, I'm helping children escape situations that can turn them into the kind of screwed up adults that get trapped in drugs, mental hospitals, prison, who smash things up, beat their loved ones, steal for- Basically provide the demand for a police force. Society is like a kid that's constantly growing up, I don't know about you, but seeing things get constantly worse is depressing the crap out of me.

"Whether or not you still consider this not your problem, we have the ability to sense each other's presence and each other's moods, sometimes even each other's intentions. This is the part where we can do something. What I want us all to do, in concert with any released from the USAES, is we deploy ourselves in as many places as we can so that we can sense the mercenaries should they approach any of the cities.

"The precog that's guiding them may be effective against cops, it's improbable any would spot them in the first place, but with us all over the place, there's going to be nowhere the precog can send them without getting found out. You're basically going to have to beg, borrow and ste- ... I could probably buy four air tickets to any western seaboard city, any of you that decide to go along with this, get your family and friends to help you, lay on the guilt, the tears, whatever, just get into position. I'll be handing out contact details to a message board administrator a number of you might be familiar with."

]:::[

"-and so they all got whatever finances they still had in their name or got their friends and family to get them a seat on a flight to which ever city they decided to take, and now we're deployed all over."

"Okay, do any of them have compasses?" asked Jodie.

"Compasses?"

"Yeah, I may need them to report a position and a vec- a direction, okay, whose bright idea was it to call your telekinetic arms 'vectors'?"

"No idea," said Phil, "one of us called them Vectors and we just went with it. Anyway, compasses, their positions, thing is, if they get close enough to nail it to the vehicle, then ... "

"I'll survey the area, as soon as they report the vehicle stops moving, if they give me the directions, I can use a time stamp and that should narrow it to no more than five vehicles, if they then diffract, we can then have them tell us when they reach a predetermined bearing, provided they're far enough apart at the time, that should give us their vehicle."

"Okay, diclonii senses, they're not some kind of radar screen, the error is going to be at least plus or minus two degrees, probably as much as fifteen."

Jodie eventually said "Right ... I can manipulate the traffic lights. ... Also, I can probably get Daria in soon, not being a diclonius, she shouldn't be detected by the enemy diclonii."

Quinn entered the cockpit and said "The disrupter packs are ready to go, even if any or even all of the detonators go off from the force of the water, the detonation will not be symmetrical, so worst case scenario, we'll have a couple of dump trucks of contaminated soil to dispose of."

"Right," said Jodie. There was another call trying to get through. "Another call, Agent Flemming? What could he want? Phil, will you excuse me a minute?"

"Yeah."

"Thanks." Jodie accepted Flemming's call. "What?"

"You're off the list. AFIS, CODIS, and any other database access codes will be restored, and none of your hacking will be prosecuted, neither will your interruption of Daria's interrogation."

" ... thanks ... What finally changed your mind?"

"Kerry admitted obliquely that she had ordered Harman's people to steal the nukes and her voice patterns match the tip offs we received, SHIELD agent Wanda Maximoff and Coastguardsman Tiffany Blum Deckler have Wanda in custody at Oxford Police Station, Oxfordshire, England."

"Okay. Thank you. I got some minions to capture."

"They're headed for Los Angeles," said Flemming.

"Kerry say that?" asked Jodie.

"Yes," said Flemming.

"We're looking at them, they are nowhere near California, let alone Los Angeles."

"How can you be so sure?"

"A load of diclonii are tracking the two working for the mercenaries."

"How do you know they got the correct diclonii?" asked Flemming.

"Because they left a nuke in the reservoir just behind Alcova dam. I really have to go now. I'll forward your apology to Daria."

"What apology? If she ha-" started Flemming.

Jodie hung up on him, switching back to Phil. "Sorry about that, the precog's in custody, we're going to set up the capture, standby while I re-task Daria.." She then used her flight ring to thought cast 'Daria, Jodie, status?'

'Going through the witness names now, Julia and I will be planning our sequence soon.'

'Kerry's been nicked, I need you with me.'

'Nicked?'

'British slang ter-'

'Meaning busted. Where do you need me?'

'Laramie, head three one five buster, I'll send Jane and Brittany to speed you up and hide you, I then need you to confirm the targets identity.'

]:::[

Jane kept looking at Daria as they travelled north west at mach 3. The magnetic shield she had formed was the slenderest thing that she could form, a double ended spike 2.5m in diameter, 20m long, this would hopefully prevent anyone experiencing any hearing loss as they were only at 300ft above ground level. Brittany was in physical contact with both to keep them invisible.

"So, how you doing?" asked Jane.

"In what sense?" asked Daria.

"That crap Boliver pulled on you in Bangledesh. You coping with that?"

Daria eventually said "Seem to be."

"Okay, pick up on that again later," said Jane. They started to approach Laramie, so Jane slowed them to mach 0.4, she thought cast 'Jodie, Jane, twenty seconds from Laramie, request target location update, over?'

'Jane from Jodie, target is moving south on route 287, join at route 80 and head south.'

'Jodie from Jane, have that, over.' Jane adjusted her course to intersect Route 80. Even though they were subsonic, Jane kept the force field up, having to talk over wind scream was an ass pain they weren't exactly pining for.

]:::[

"Think we're finally safe?" asked Harman.

"Boss hasn't called," said Val.

"Why?" asked Sal.

"I don't know, something feels wrong here. She was calling every ten minutes practically, and now no more calls," said Harman.

"What exactly are you thinking?" asked Val.

"She got busted," said Harm.

"No, precog, she'll see it and avoid it," said Sal.

"Unless ... " said Val. She looked pensive.

"She was too busy looking out for us to look out for herself," said Harm.

The silence told him that the two diclonii concurred.

"Take the next turn off the road, she calls, we resume, she doesn't, we re-think our plan," said Harm, "I also think we need to turn the metajammer on."

Val and Sal looked at each other, and nodded. Harman nodded to one of his soldiers, he opened a briefcase that held the metajammer and turned it on. He then held it up to show the vehicle behind, signalling them to also activate theirs. The field wouldn't go much farther than a few car lengths, but it would hide them.

The only problem was that Val and Sal would be unable to use their vectors within it.

]:::[

Daria, Jane, and Brittany overflew traffic at about 140mph.

Eventually Jodie thought cast 'Jane, Jodie, what's your location, over?'

'Just past the turn for Harney Creek, over.'

'That's too far, you've over flown them.'

"Daria, we're turning around, Jodie says we overflew the suspect vehicles."

"Damn it, metajammers," said Daria, rubbing her face in awe at her own stupidity, "forgot to look for vehicles that have no detectable presence, sorry."

Jane turned them around and they headed back north.

'Jane, Jodie, two vehicles have turned off at a turn about a klick north of W Winds Road, if you eliminate the other vehicles, those two look suspect, their registered owners don't have any business with the occupiers of that address or anyone in business with the occupiers of that address, over.'

'Jodie, Jane, have that, over.'

]:::[

Harman, Val and Sal looked around the barn.

"Val, Sal," said Harman as he walked into a stall filled with wood panels, beams, and fixings. He picked up a bag of nails. "what do you think?"

"Combine a bucket of those with each of the two quad bikes outside," said Val.

"We'd be two very mobile gun platforms," said Sal.

One of Harm's soldiers entered saying "we've locked the farmer and his family in the basement, told him he was suspected of treason, and that posse commutates had been suspended by presidential order."

That got a laugh.

"That'll get those militia groups buzzing for the next decade or three," said another.

Harman eventually said "Alright, cut the funny, time to figure out our alternative plan. We kept getting captured in each of our bosses predictions, why? How?"

"Why don't we just slot them?" asked Val.

"Dead people draw attention, live people crying fed-gov conspiracy repel it," said Harman, "even though they'd have probably not been discovered for a couple of days, this'll buy us even more time. As soon as we figure out where to go and how. Our vehicles could be subject to a BOLO," said Harman.

"That means we can't just leave them here," said one of his soldiers.

"Can't drive them either," said Harman, "if we can find a tractor and two big enough flat bed trailers, we should be able to hide the vans in bails of hay, tow them cross country, we can then ditch all of them, carry the nukes cross country until we can find some alternate vehicles, use some more of our alternate identities."

"Right, let's get the vans in here."

]:::[

Jane, Daria and Brittany overflew the farm. 'Jodie from Jane, no sign of the vans, did they move from this location, over?'

'Jane from Jodie, Vans have not moved from that location, they're probably in a building. Over.'

"Daria, sense anything?"

"House has six people in the basement, crapping themselves, not sensing anyone else, but since we're thinking they're using metajammers, that means nothing," said Daria.

"Okay, what do we want to do then?" asked Jane.

"Land us behind that fuel tank on the south side of the house," said Brittany, "We'll need Tom to look through the house before we enter."

]:::[

Tom looked into the barn just north of the house Daria, Jane and Brittany were stood south of.

'All Legionnaires from Tom, I see about eighteen of the X-rays including the two diclonii in the barn north of the house, no X-rays in the house, just the Yankees stuck in the basement, the X-rays in the barn have two flatbed trailers attached to a tractor, they have their vans on the trailers, three are outside the vans, sacking hay bails around the vans, looks like they intend to move cross country, over.'

"Do you see the nukes?" asked Quinn.

"Yeah, there's nine implosion type, detonators rigged to a relay, looks like they're not yet fused, so up to you, but I don't see a need for the disruptors," said Tom.

'All Legionnaires, Brittany, I want the X-rays out in the open when we attack, that will give us our best opportunity to safely capture them.'

]:::[

The soldier on the tractor drove along, looking around for signs that anyone was watching them.

Suddenly the engine was blown apart.

"DAMN IT!" He said as he engaged the handbrake.

"Zero Three from Zero One Alpha, sit-rep, over?"

"Zero one Alpha, Zero Three, engine's bent, over," he said as he got off the tractor to examine the engine. A lot of parts had left the engine, and the sump was gone, exposing the crank and all the connecting rod big ends. "What the fuck did this?"

The engine block itself was intact, so it couldn't be a blown cylinder.

But what else could do this? The force seemed to have come from underneath the engine, but there's nothing under the engine capable of doing this.

He then noticed a crater with some scraps of grey plastic, there were even strands of black plastic connecting the grey plastic, possibly PVC electrical tape wrapped around a grey plastic container. Looking back under the tractor, he also noticed a pair of twisted wires, blown back by the explosion, probably leading back to whoever initiated the blast. This was all looking very consistent with a certain EOD device Alford Industries had developed for disrupting car bombs.

He barely raised his radio to his mouth before he was knocked out.

]:::[

"Zero Three from Zero One Alpha, sit rep, over?" asked Harman.

They had been sitting still for ten minutes.

This was starting to grate.

"Zero One Alpha, Zero Three, I think we're going to have to transplant one of the van engines to the tractor, over."

"Christ almighty tap dancing Christ on a fucking pentacycle," muttered Harman before he responded "Zero Three, Zero One Alpha, have that, standby, over."

After a few seconds, Harman asked "Which is more likely: A Tractor engine blowing out, an eventuality most farmers on the planet will do anything to preclude, seeing as no tractor equals no work and no money, or an ambush?"

"What do we do then?" asked Val.

"When the field drops, will your telepathic link with Sal allow you to communicate that we're under attack?" asked Harman, "we have to assume radio comms is compromised."

"I think I can communicate that feeling, I think she'll respond."

"Good," said Harman, he then said "Zero Seven from Zero One Alpha, I need you to standby to create a defence perimeter, we'll use my van's engine for the job, also, we'll want the jammers off so Val and Sal can use their vectors, but we need it to stay off as short as possible, so standby for my command for that, over."

"Zero Seven has that, preparing as ordered, over."

]:::[

'From Tom, The diclonii are taking positions on the top of the vans, each has a bucket of nails, over.'

Everyone watched the bales of hay. Charles was disguised as the soldier they had knocked out. 'Charles, Brittany, make yourself inconspicuous, over.'

Charles turned into a secondary adamantium plated ED 209 only with PFTs in place of it's guns.

'Quinn and Betty from Brittany, standby, standby ... '

"From zero one alpha, drop the field."

The instant that command was given, the bails of hay exploded and nails flew from the buckets to everywhere around the trailers, the soldiers on the lead one aimed but held fire, probably until some of the nails fail to hit the ground (Indicating Jane's magnetic field), about half were equipped with PFT M2s.

'go.'

A ring of twelve projectiles launched themselves into the air from around the trailers and produced a sound that was deafening and a light that was blinding to the mercenaries.

Following the flash-bangs, Betty teleported in off to the opposite side of the trailers from the Legionnaires and threw a charge equivalent in energy to a BLU82 into the air above him before teleporting out.

This blast knocked the vans and the soldiers off the trailers, it also turned the trailers over too.

The soldiers on the near side were moving slower than the vans and were missed by the vans when they fell, the ones on the opposite side landed beyond the vans.

'All Legionnaires, attack now,' thought cast Brittany.

They advanced on the mercenaries, using their PFTs to knock out the mercenaries. Once this was done, they went about securing the prisoners and their weapons.

Eventually Brittany asked Tom "How are the nukes?"

Tom looked through the vans and the bombs and said "still safe."

"Good."

]:::[

The Gridrunner landed on runway 9R at Heathrow and took the fourth taxiway o meet with the waiting prisoner transport.

As the forward port door opened, Wanda and Tiffany emerged with Kerry, restrained by a Mk 40 cuff on her wrist and the usual manacles and shackles. Kerry seemed inappropriately cheery in contrast to Tiffany and Wanda's inappropriate weariness.

As Julia and Daria met with them, Wanda simply said "Take her, take her now."

Daria smirked for a second.

"What?" asked Julia.

"Fammiliar scene," said Daria, "ask Jane what happened when I was invited to Grove Hill school for the gifted."

"'Kay," said Julia as she took a hold of Kerry's waist leash, she then pointed at Tiffany and asked "this one been any trouble?"

"Perfect Gentlewoman, only had to restrain her twenty times," said Wanda, she then said "actually she seems to be okay, a little de-burring and she'll be a model ... ... coastguardsman."

"So, who was it who foiled my dastardly plan?" asked Kerry.

"Tell you in a few years time," said Daria.

"Aw come ooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn," said Kerry.

"Yeah, we'll tell you, you'll predict us telling you, and we'll have to work just that little bit harder to get you," said Wanda, "Hey, we might even lose a city as well."

"Well, life's no fun without a little risk," said Daria, "maybe we should tell her."

After about five seconds, they all concluded "Naahhhhhhhhh."

"Oh come on, I'll give you a blowjob, just tell me, tell me, tell me!" said Kerry, parodying an excited kid.

"Tell you what, plead 'No Contest' at your court martial, and we'll consider it," said Julia as she led Kerry onto the Gridrunner.

"Really?" asked Kerry.

"No," said Julia.

"Awww, you're mean," pouted Kerry.

As Julia got Kerry onto the Gridrunner, Tiffany asked "The diclonii, they dead or busted?"

"Busted," said Daria, "explain it to you question mark amount of time later."

"Okay," said Tiffany.

"How's your legal situation?" asked Daria.

"Still precarious. I'm feeling more hopeful though."

"You guys need a lift?" asked Daria.

"We still got business with the CPS," said Wanda, "we'll be making our own way back later."

"Okay, good luck," said Daria as she returned to the Gridrunner.

]:::[

"So, NEST arrived, picked up the uranium shells, that's going back into the civilian energy market, that's it," said Quinn.

"I was hoping Harman might have a reaction to finding out that he was being ordered around by a captain, but I saw none, that guy's no fun," said Julia.

"You want 'No Fun', try listening to Kerry trying to wind everyone up," said Daria, "titanium oxide white foundation, green hair dye, idiot big grin, suit her personality to the ground."

"Maybe her cellie could play 'Harlequin' to her joker," said Julia.

"Hey Daria, how about I get you a batman costume next birthday?" asked Jane.

Daria didn't respond.

"Perfect character," said Jane.

"Hope I'm not interrupting," said Agent Flemming as he entered.

Everyone except Daria turned to glare at him.

"What are you doing here Mr. Flemming?" asked Brittany.

"He's still an agent," said Daria.

"I need a word with Daria alone," said Flemming.

"No way," said Brittany.

"Got something to hide?" asked Flemming.

"Only the guilty have something to hide," said Daria.

"Exactly," said Flemming.

"Oh come on, that was so transparent, even you should have gotten that," said Daria.

Flemming looked perturbed. "I don't follow."

"You got something to discuss, guess I might as well hear it. Boss?" asked Daria.

"Okay," said Brittany.

All the Legionnaires except Daria left the room.

"From what you said just now, I imagine what you have to say is the exact opposite of an apology," said Daria.

"That's right. I want to know if we're safe."

"You're safe. Unless the Director decides to make a move on you, the only thing I can think of that would keep him from firing you is that he's gay for you. Thankfully Boliver's deniability allowed us to get him back into his life sentence."

"When I say 'We', I mean the United States, does the Legion approve of us Americans?"

"I see. ... Flemming, we're not you guys, we go out to save lives, American or non, meta or normal, we use our law enforcement officer status to assist in that."

"You see us as the bad guys?" Asked Flemming.

"You know, Agent Flemming, for a spy agency that recently decided we were a terrorist organisation, your inroads into figuring out what we're like are abysmally short," said Daria, "what is it you think we're about? Seriously, you've infiltrated everyone from Amnesty International to the Salvation Army, to Boy Scouts, Stonewall, is there anyone you don't think is some kind of fifth column for some invasion force? Actually, never mind that, you probably suspect yourselves of being insurgents you're that paranoid, what I don't get is why you didn't pick a more suitable method? Infiltration, eavesdropping devices, you could have sent someone along to 'liase' with us, that person could have been both a carrier for eavesdropping devices and an active investigator, instead you decided to abduct me, RIGHT when I was a hair away from blowing this case wide open, and impede our investigation by placing us on that watchlist instead of simply watching our internet activity. You haven't improved one bit, well, except I don't feel like I've had anyone's hand up my ass, so I guess you've improved there."

"Right, this is the part where you attack my self esteem to throw me off balance is it?" asked Flemming.

"Flemming, this is me being honest and straight up. You are an idiot. You nearly helped a bunch of terrorists nuke some US cities, you put a proven nut job in charge of an apparently vital interrogation, with no supervision what so ever, so he could attempt to drive me nuts so I become his weapon of mass convenience so he could hawk his sentinel robots, you, agent Flemming, are stupid."

"You know your mind control powers won't work on me, I've been Esper trained."

"Good for you, just need to work on getting that twenty-twenty hindsight everyone else mastered at age two," said Daria, "anything else?"

"Yeah. We'll be watching you. Have a nice day." Agent Flemming then left.

"Prick," commented Daria.

]:::[

"Tiffany Blum Deckler here as ordered," said Tiffany as she entered and stood at attention.

"Stand easy," said the Admiral. He then asked "I received your shrink's report."

"I pass?"

"Frankly ... No, shrink felt your lust for the hunt made you a potential danger to the mission, he wanted you out of the navy."

"Ah."

"He then interviewed Wanda to get her perspective on you, and Wanda knows how to speak shrink, and saved your job and your active field status, so you're clear. Just go out, relax, come back ready to kill."

"Thank you sir," said Tiffany, now seriously elated for the first time in days.

"Dismissed."

She snapped to attention again, and was out the door faster than a cartoon character or the Mask.

"Shrinks," said the Admiral with a chuckle.

]:::[

End.


End file.
